"Well, child, I can only say how unfortunate it is that you should lose your situation. It may be so difficult to get another."
Another matter, that had been giving Mrs. Raynor and Edina concern for some little time, was the education of the children. Alfred ought now to go to a better school; Robert ought to be at one. The child was eight years old. Sometimes it had crossed Edina's mind to wish he could be got into Christ's Hospital: she thought it high time, now that Alice was coming home, to think about it practically. If poor little Bob could be admitted there, it would make room for Alice.
Talking it over with Mrs. Raynor and Charles that same evening, it was decided that the first step towards it must be to obtain a list of the governors. It might be that one of that body had known something of Major Raynor in the days gone by, and would help his little son. How was the list to be procured? They knew not, and went to bed pondering the question.
"I will go to the library and ask Mr. Jones," said Edina the next morning. "Perhaps he has one."
Mr. Jones had not a list, but thought he knew where he could borrow one. And he did so, and left it at the door in the after-part of the day. Edina sat down to study it.
"Here is a name almost at the beginning that we know," she said, looking up with a smile.
"Is there!" exclaimed Charles, with animation, and taking an imaginative view of Robert, yellow-stockinged and bareheaded. "Whose name is it, Edina?"
"George Atkinson, Esquire, Eagles' Nest," read out Edina.
"How unfortunate!" exclaimed Mrs. Raynor. "The very man to whom we cannot apply."
"The very man to whom we will apply," corrected Edina. "If you will not do so, Mary, I will."