For the last year—ever since Mary and Ruth had gone to school, and since Miss Rice, the governess who had been with them for over six years, had got married—the younger children had only had lessons when their mother or father could find time to teach them.
The school fees of the four elder children came to so large a sum of money that the vicar could not afford to have a governess at home for Norah and Tom and Dan; and as both Mr. and Mrs. Carew led very busy lives, lessons had sometimes to be put on one side altogether, and the children were beginning to forget a great deal which they had learned a year ago with Miss Rice.
The foreign gentleman's offer, therefore, had been a great relief to Mr. and Mrs. Carew, and the children were delighted at the idea of going to the Grange every day to do their lessons with Una.
"And we shall be able to tell Una more about the Bible now, shan't we, father?" said Norah. "She wants to know such a lot more. Nobody has ever told her about Christmas before—that it is Jesus Christ's birthday, I mean; and that that is why everyone is so happy then and tries to make everyone else happy, just like He used to do. And she didn't know God made the world, or that He takes care of us, or anything."
"Poor little girl!" said Mrs. Carew.
"Poor child, indeed!" said the vicar. "I wonder why Monsieur Gen——," and then he stopped suddenly, thinking, no doubt, that the children were quite curious enough already about their foreign neighbours. "After all, it is not for us to pry into other people's affairs," he said, with a smile. "Teach little Una all you can about the Bible and God's love, Norah; but do not worry her with questions about her father and his doings."
A week later the children went to the Grange for their first morning's lessons with Una.
"I feel just as if we were going into a magic palace," whispered Norah, as they waited for the door to be opened.
"And as if we should be turned into snakes and wolves and all sorts of horrid animals, before we came out again," said Tom.
"Or into one of those marble statues," whispered Dan, as they followed the servant across the hall to the foot of the staircase, where another servant met them and led the way upstairs. At the end of a long passage he paused and flung open a door, standing aside for the children to pass.