"Theo can't bear Miss Penelope. He says boys always hate their governesses."
"But that's not true. Why should Theo hate Miss Penelope, because she does her best to teach him?"
"Oh, it's not that, mother! You know Miss Penelope is a cross sort of woman."
Mrs. Barton was silent. She did her best to like her husband's aunts, and succeeded as far as the elder sister was concerned. But at the same time she well knew that in their different ways they put Theodore against her: Miss Penelope intentionally, she was afraid, and Miss Selina from sheer lack of tact. For, sorrowfully, Mrs. Barton was obliged to acknowledge that she knew but little more of Theodore, after living three months under the same roof with him, than she had the first day of her arrival. The boy was perfectly respectful and polite, but he never talked freely to his stepmother.
Mr. Barton had not been in the habit of seeing much of his little son, but even he could not help noticing that Theodore purposely kept in the background.
The stepbrothers were true friends. Jack loved Theodore dearly, and admired him for possessing the qualities he lacked himself; whilst Theodore in return was growing to love Jack best of all the world, with an affection that had sprung from purest pity in the first instance, but was daily becoming stronger and deeper.
There were days when Jack lay moaning in bed, racked and tortured with pain. On such occasions Theodore's footstep was noiseless as it passed the sufferer's door; his usually loud, clear voice hushed to a whisper. Then would follow a time of utter weakness for poor Jack, when, free from pain, he could bear to hear his mother read or sing to him, and would listen with a patient, placid smile, whilst Theodore recounted the tale of some wonderful adventure that had befallen him, for Theodore was always having adventures. He would be thrown from his pony, and fall unhurt; once whilst fishing, he had stumbled into the river, and had been fished out himself by a gamekeeper, none the worse for his ducking; and on another occasion, when endeavouring to rob a wood-pigeon's nest of its eggs, he had slipped, and returned home with a scarred and bleeding face, much to the alarm of Jack and the anger of Jane.
"I did not get the eggs after all," Theodore had lamented as Jane had bathed his injured countenance.
"Oh, Theo, I'm so glad!" Jack had exclaimed. "It's so cruel to rob birds' nests, I think."
Theodore had made no answer, putting it down as one of Jack's peculiarities that he should consider birds'-nesting wrong.