“Very well, mother. Then I’ll go riding round to see the tenants, and look after the things at home just as you wish me to. Will that do?”
Lady Royland smiled, and then pressed her son’s arm.
“Go up now, then, to Master Pawson’s room,” she said; “and recollect that one of the things I wish you to do is to be more studious than you would be if your father were at home.”
Roy nodded and hurried up into the corridor, thinking to himself that Master Pawson would not like his being so much in his mother’s confidence.
“Then he’ll have to dislike it. He has been a bit too forward lately, speaking to the servants as if he were master here. I heard him quite bully poor old Jenk one day. But, of course, I don’t want to quarrel with him.”
Roy ascended the staircase and entered the room, to find the secretary bending over a big volume in the Greek character; and, as he looked up smiling, the boy felt that his tutor was about the least quarrelsome-looking personage he had ever seen.
“Rather a long half-hour, Roy, is it not?” he said.
“Yes, sir; I’m very sorry. My mother met me as I was coming across the garden, and talked to me, and I could not leave her in such trouble.”
“Trouble? Trouble?” said the secretary, raising his eyebrows.
“Of course, sir, about the bad news you told her this morning.”