Frances and Austin did not go back to school, but they went twice a week to Woodbank for private lessons in modern languages, classics, and mathematics, and studied at home between whiles. Every evening they spent at least a couple of hours over their books, and found chances for music and drawing as best they could in the daytime.
It was this custom which led, one evening in November, to an unexpected development in the quiet life of Rowdon Cottage. The boy and girl (Austin being the chief spokesman) had persuaded Jim that they would not accept sole rights in his old “den”. He must spend there his few hours of leisure, and a book-case brought from Elveley should be consecrated to his library. Jim at first availed himself but sparingly of his opportunities. Usually he worked all the early part of the evening in the smithy or the shed, and later on disappeared into the little lumber attic where he had disposed the tools and materials for his wood-carving. But sometimes he would slip quietly into the children’s room—the study, as they chose to call it,—and after a respectful, interested glance at the pair of young students seated opposite one another, with the shaded lamp between them, at the round table, would take a book from his shelf and try to remember that he was one of the family.
On the evening in question, Frances had noticed that Jim had betaken himself to his own corner with a volume which she had seen with some surprise to be Green’s Short History of the English People. The lad read steadily for an hour or so, and Frances, each time she looked up, saw that his attention was firmly fixed on the page. But presently Jim leaned back in his chair, his book rested on his knee, and his eyes were turned towards the round table with an expression which his sister found uncomfortably suggestive of some latent longing. She hesitated for a moment, and then said diffidently:
“Don’t you like your book, Jim?”
“Yes, but I’ve finished it, thank you, Missy.”
Jim had not learned to say “Frances”; but “Missy”, as he pronounced it, had the accents of a pet-name, and his sister had ceased to find fault with it.
“Fancy! You must read fast. Can you remember all those names and things? I do think it’s difficult.”
“I’ve read this book three times,” said Jim gently. He had read, ever since he could remember, all the historical works he could get hold of. “I ought to remember it now, Missy.”
“Do you want to?” asked Frances curiously.
“Ay—surely. Else, what good to be an Englishman?”