"There are very few people of your opinion, my dear," said her uncle. "But you are a good, kind, generous girl, and we are more grateful to you than we can say. And now, shall I talk to this young man? Have you asked him any questions?"
"Yes. I do not think that we need reject him because he has no references, uncle."
"Very well, Elizabeth. I quite agree with you. But, on the whole, we won't mention the fact of his having no references to the rest of the family."
"Just what I was about to say, Uncle Alfred."
Thereupon she betook herself to the house, and Mr. Heron proceeded to the bench on the cliff, where he held a long and apparently satisfactory colloquy with his visitor. And at the end of the conversation it was decided that Mr. John Stretton, as he called himself, should give three or four hours daily of his valuable time to the instruction of the more youthful members of the Heron family.
CHAPTER XVII.
PERCIVAL'S HOLIDAY.
"Hey for the South, the sunny South!" said Percival Heron, striding into his friend Vivian's room with a lighted cigar between his teeth and a letter in his hand. "I'm off to Italy to-morrow."
"I wish to Heaven that I were off, too!" returned Rupert, leaning back in a lounging-chair with a look of lazy discontent. "The fogs last all the year round in London. This is May; I don't know why I am in town at all."