“I should think you needn't be afraid of any,” said Mrs. Paget. “I told you, Charlotte, about that story we heard at Heronhurst last summer—dear boy—you know he bore—”
“Yes,” interrupted Mrs. Norman. “You have a large number of school-fellows, Master Louis,” she added.
“Yes, ma'am, there are seventy-six of us this half, so many that we hardly know the names of the lower school.”
“Is that M. Ferrar or Ferrers there still?” asked Mrs. Paget.
“Yes, ma'am, and he is so much improved, you cannot think.”
Louis looked very earnestly at her as she spoke, and she put her hand on his forehead, stroking his hair off, while she replied,
“He is very happy in having so kind a friend, I am sure; he ought to have been expelled.”
“Oh no, ma'am—I think kindness was much the best way,” said Louis; and remembering how incautiously he had spoken of him before, he said all that he could in his praise.
The conversation then turned upon the school in general, and it was astonishing to watch how much Louis said indirectly in his own praise, and how nearly every thing seemed to turn in the direction of dear self, in the history of his lessons, progress, and rivals—and even when it branched off to his friends, among whom in the first rank stood Hamilton.
“You would so like Hamilton, he is so kind to me. I told you about him before,” said Louis, eagerly.