Which sounded well; but I suspected the parson of a good deal of officious advice in a long sentence, of which I only caught the words, "Can't begin too early."
I felt convinced, too, that I heard something about the "use of the whip," which put me into a fever of indignation. Just as Mr. Andrewes was riding off, my father asked some question, to which the reply was—"Gray."
My head was so full of the tutor that I could not enjoy the stroll with my father as usual, and was not sorry to get back to Nurse Bundle, to whom I confided all that I had heard about my future teacher.
"He's a nasty little man," said I, "not a nice tall gentleman like Papa or Mr. Andrewes. And Mr. Andrewes saw him yesterday. And Mr. Andrewes says he's young. And he says he's good-natured; but then what makes him use whips? And his name is Mr. Gray. And he says the other little boy was very fond of him, but I don't believe it," I continued, breaking down at this point into tears, "and they've gone abroad (sobs) and I wish—boohoo! boohoo—they'd taken him!"
With some trouble Nurse Bundle found out the meaning of my rather obscure speech. Her wrath at the thought of a whip in connection with her darling was quite as great as my own. But she persisted in taking a hopeful view of Mr. Gray, and trusting loyally to my father's judgment, and she succeeded in softening my grief for the time.
When I came down to dessert that evening I pretended to be quite happy and comfortable, and to have nothing on my mind. But happily few children are clever at pretending what is not true, and as I was constantly thinking about "that dreadful tutor," and puzzling over the scraps of conversation I had heard to see if anything more could be made out of them, my father soon found out that something was amiss.
"What is the matter, Regie?" he asked.
"Nothing, Father," I replied, with a very poor imitation of cheerfulness and no approach to truth.
"My dear boy," said my father, frowning slightly (a thing I always dreaded), "do not say what is untrue, for any reason. If you do not want to tell me what troubles you, say, 'I'd rather not tell you, please,' like a man, and I will not persecute you about it. But don't say there is nothing the matter when your little head is quite full of something that bothers you very much. As I said, I will not press you, but as I love you, and wish to help you in every way I can, I think you had better tell me."
Now, though I had really not thought I was doing wrong in listening to the conversation I was not meant to hear, a something which one calls conscience made me feel ashamed of the whole matter. I had a feeling of being in the wrong, which is apt to make one vexed and fretful, and it was this, quite as much as fear of my grave father, which made the colour rush to my face, and the tears into my eyes.