Mrs. Halliburton's Troubles Part 59

"Philip!"

"Well, papa, I don't mean that, exactly. But I do not see the use of boys listening to their mothers just in everything."

Philip Glenn seized his note, and added a postscript:--"My father sais you are to come to tea to-morrow we shall be so joly." And it was despatched to Frank by a servant in livery.

CHAPTER XII.

A LESSON FOR PHILIP GLENN.

Frank was as eager to accept the invitation as Philip had been to offer it. When the afternoon arrived, and school was over, Frank tore home, donned his best clothes, and then tore back again to Mr. Glenn's house.

Philip received him in the small room, where he and his brother prepared their lessons.

"How is it that you and my boys write English so differently?" inquired Mr. Glenn, when he had made Frank's acquaintance.

Frank broke into a broad smile, suggested by the remembrance of Philip's English. "We study it at home, sir."

"But some one teaches you?"

"Mamma. She was afraid that we should grow up ignorant of everything except Latin and Greek; so she thought she would remedy the evil."

"And she takes you in an evening?"

"Yes, sir; every evening except Sat.u.r.day, when she is sure to be busy.

She comes to the table as soon as our lessons for school are prepared, and we commence English. The easier portions of our Latin and Greek we do in the day, I and Gar: we crib the time from play-hours; and my brother William helps us at night with the more difficult parts."

"Where is your brother at school?" asked Mr. Glenn.

"He is not at school, sir. He is at Mr. Ashley's, with Cyril Dare.

William has not been to school since papa died. But he was well up in everything, for papa had taken great pains with him, and he has gone on by himself since."

"Can he do much good by himself?"

"Good!" echoed Frank, speaking bluntly in his eagerness; "I don't think you could find so good a scholar for his age. There's not one could come near him in the college school. At first he found it hard work. He had no one to explain difficult points for him, and was obliged to puzzle them out with his own brains. And it's that that has got him on."

Mr. Glenn nodded. "Where a good foundation has been laid, a hard-working boy may get on better without a master than with one, provided----"

"That is just what William says," interrupted Frank, his dark eyes sparkling with animation. "He would have given anything at one time to be at the college school with us; but he does not care about it now."

"Provided his heart is in his work, I was about to add," said Mr. Glenn, smiling at Frank's eagerness.

"Oh, of course, sir. And that's what William's is. He has such capital books, too--all the best that are published. They were papa's. I hardly know how I and Gar should get on, without William's help."

"Does he help you?"

"He has helped us ever since papa died; before we went to college, and since. We do algebra and Euclid with him."

"In--deed!" exclaimed Mr. Glenn, looking hard at Frank. "When do you contrive to do all this?"

"In the evening. Tea is over by half-past five, and we three--William, I, and Gar--turn at once to our lessons. In about two hours mamma joins us, and we work with her about two hours more. Of course we have different nights for different studies, Latin every night, Greek nearly every night, Euclid twice a week, algebra twice a week, and so on. And the lessons we do with mamma are portioned out; some one night, some another."

"You must be very persevering boys," cried Mr. Glenn. "Do you never catch yourselves looking off to play; to talk and laugh?"

"No, sir, never. We have got into the habit of sticking to our lessons; mamma brought us into it. And then, we are anxious to get on: half the battle lies in that."

"I think it does. Philip, my boy, here's a lesson for you, and for all other lazy scapegraces."

Philip shrugged his shoulders, with a laugh. "Papa, I don't see any good in working so hard."

"Your friend Frank does."

"We are obliged to work, sir," said Frank, candidly. "We have no money, and it is only by education that we can hope to get on. Mamma thinks it may turn out all for the best. She says that boys who expect money very often rely upon it and not upon themselves. She would rather turn us out into the world with our talents cultivated and a will to use them, than with a fortune apiece. There's not a parable in the Bible mamma is fonder of reading to us than that of the ten talents."

"No fortune!" repeated Mr. Glenn in a dreamy tone.

"Not a penny; mamma has to work to keep us," returned Frank, making the avowal as freely as though he had proclaimed that his mother was lady-in-waiting to the Queen, and he one of her pages. Jane had contrived to convince them that in poverty itself there lay no shame or stigma; but a great deal in paltry attempts to conceal it.

"Frank," said Mr. Glenn, "I was thinking that you must possess a fortune in your mother."

"And so we do!" said Frank. "When Philip's note came to me last night, and we were--were----"

"Laughing over it!" suggested Mr. Glenn, helping out Frank's hesitation, and laughing himself.

"Yes, that's it; only I did not like to say it," acknowledged Frank.

"But I dare say you know, sir, how most of the college boys write. Mamma said then, how glad we ought to be that she can make time to teach us better, and that we have the resolution to persevere."

"I wish your mother would admit my sons to her cla.s.s," said Mr. Glenn, half-seriously, half-jokingly. "I would give her any recompense."

"Shall I ask her?" cried Frank.

"Perhaps she would feel hurt?"

"Oh no, she wouldn't," answered Frank impulsively. "I will ask her."

"I should not like such a strict mother," avowed Philip Glenn.

"Strict!" echoed Frank. "Mamma's not strict."

"She must be. She says you shan't come fis.h.i.+ng with us to-morrow."

"No, she did not. She said she wished me not to go, and thought I had better not, and then she left it to me."

Philip Glenn stared. "You told me at school this morning that it was decided you were not to come. And now you say Mrs. Halliburton left it to you."

"So she did," answered Frank. "She generally leaves these things to us.