his she kissed him, and holding his big hand in both of her little
ones, she whispered softly:

'Poor Harold! You and I should love each other, for we have both
lost our mother. And now you have lost your father. But you must
let my dear daddy be yours too!'

At this time Harold was between fourteen and fifteen years old. He
was well educated in so far as private teaching went. His father had
devoted much care to him, so that he was well grounded in all the
Academic branches of learning. He was also, for his years, an expert
in most manly exercises. He could ride anything, shoot straight,
fence, run, jump or swim with any boy more than his age and size.

In Normanstand his education was continued by the rector. The Squire
used often to take him with him when he went to ride, or fish, or
shoot; frankly telling him that as his daughter was, as yet, too
young to be his companion in these matters, he would act as her locum
tenens. His living in the house and his helping as he did in
Stephen's studies made familiarity perpetual. He was just enough her
senior to command her childish obedience; and there were certain
qualities in his nature which were eminently calculated to win and
keep the respect of women as well as of men. He was the very
incarnation of sincerity, and had now and again, in certain ways, a
sublime self-negation which, at times, seemed in startling contrast
to a manifestly militant nature. When at school he had often been
involved in fights which were nearly always on matters of principle,
and by a sort of unconscious chivalry he was generally found fighting
on the weaker side. Harold's father had been very proud of his
ancestry, which was Gothic through the Dutch, as the manifestly