"I wonder what they were talking about," thought Gratian. But he soon forgot about it again—his mind was too full of its own affairs.
Tony looked vexed and unhappy that afternoon, and Dolly's rosy face bore traces of tears. She overtook Gratian on his way home in the evening, and began again talking about the lost book.
"It's so vexing for Tony, isn't it?" she said, "and do you know, Gratian, it's even more vexing than we thought. Did you see a lady at the school to-day? Do you know who she was?"
Gratian shook his head.
"She's the lady from the Big House down the road, that's been shut up so long. It isn't her house, but she's the sister or the cousin of the gentleman it belongs to, and he's lent it to her because the doctors said the air hereabouts would be good for her little boy. He's ill someway, he can scarcely walk. And she came to the school to-day to ask master if one of the boys—his best boy, she said—might go sometimes to play with her little boy and read to him a little. And Tony was sure of being the top of the class if only he had finished copying out those exercises—he'd put right all the faults the master had marked, and it only wanted copying. But now he's no chance; the other boys have theirs nearly done."
"How do you know about what the lady said?" Gratian asked.
"The master told mother. He met her in the village just before afternoon lessons, and asked her if she'd let Tony go, if so be as he was head of his class."
"And would he like to go, d'ye think, Dolly?" asked Gratian.
"He'd like to be head of his class, anyway," the sister replied. "I don't know as father can let him go, for we're very busy at the mill, and Tony's big enough to help when he's not at school. But he'd not like to see Ben or that conceited Robert put before him. If it were you now, Gratian, I don't think he'd mind so much."
Gratian's heart beat fast at her words. Visions of the pleasure of going to see the pretty lady and her boy, of hearing her soft voice speaking to him, and of seeing the inside of the Big House, which had always been a subject of curiosity to the children of the village, rose temptingly before him. But they soon faded.