The jar of this interruption, the discord of Tom’s tones coming across the notes to which Philip was vibrating in soul and body, would have been enough to unhinge his temper, even if there had been no question of Poulter the drilling-master; and Tom, in the hurry of seizing something to say to prevent Mr Poulter from thinking he was afraid of the sword when he sprang away from it, had alighted on this proposition to fetch Philip, though he knew well enough that Philip hated to hear him mention his drilling-lessons. Tom would never have done so inconsiderate a thing except under the severe stress of his personal pride. Philip shuddered visibly as he paused from his music. Then turning red, he said, with violent passion,— “Get away, you lumbering idiot! Don’t come bellowing at me; you’re not fit to speak to anything but a cart-horse!” It was not the first time Philip had been made angry by him, but Tom had never before been assailed with verbal missiles that he understood so well. “I’m fit to speak to something better than you, you poor-spirited imp!” said Tom, lighting up immediately at Philip’s fire. “You know I won’t hit you, because you’re no better than a girl. But I’m an honest man’s son, and _your_ father’s a rogue; everybody says so!” Tom flung out of the room, and slammed the door after him, made strangely heedless by his anger; for to slam doors within the hearing of Mrs Stelling, who was probably not far off, was an offence only to be wiped out by twenty lines of Virgil. In fact, that lady did presently descend from her room, in double wonder at the noise and the subsequent cessation of Philip’s music. She found him sitting in a heap on the hassock, and crying bitterly. “What’s the matter, Wakem? what was that noise about? Who slammed the door?” Philip looked up, and hastily dried his eyes. “It was Tulliver who came in—to ask me to go out with him.” “And what are you in trouble about?” said Mrs Stelling. Philip was not her favourite of the two pupils; he was less obliging than Tom, who was made useful in many ways. Still, his father paid more than Mr Tulliver did, and she meant him to feel that she behaved exceedingly well to him. Philip, however, met her advances toward a good understanding very much as a caressed mollusk meets an invitation to show himself out of his shell. Mrs Stelling was not a loving, tender-hearted woman; she was a woman whose skirt sat well, who adjusted her waist and patted her curls with a preoccupied air when she inquired after your welfare. These things, doubtless, represent a great social power, but it is not the power of love; and no other power could win Philip from his personal reserve. He said, in answer to her question, “My toothache came on, and made me hysterical again.”