The Doctor and his wife often dined at the old manor-house, and upon this occasion Mike’s mother asked her visitors if they did not think they wandered too much.
“No,” said Sir Francis, taking the answer out of his guests’ mouths laughingly. “Mrs Burnet doesn’t think anything of the kind, so don’t you put such ideas in her head.”
“But they are often so late, my dear.”
“Well, it’s summer-time, and cooler of an evening. Pleasantest part of the day. If they work well, let them play well. Eh, Burnet?”
“Certainly,” said the Doctor, “so long as they don’t get into mischief. But do they work well?”
“What do you say, Mr Deane?” said the baronet.
“Admirably,” replied the tutor; “but I must say that I should like them to have a couple of hours’ more study a day—say a couple of hours in the afternoon.”
“No,” said the Doctor emphatically. “You work them well with their English and classics and calculations every morning: let them have some of Nature’s teaching of an afternoon, and strengthen their bodies after you’ve done strengthening their heads.”
“I side with you, Burnet,” said the baronet. “Let them go on as they are for a year or two, and then we’ll see.”
The tutor bowed. “I only thought I was not doing enough for them,” he said apologetically.