cat, and so nobody cared for him. At home he was sufficient to
himself, properly behaved to his father, civil to Richard, unmerciful
in ridicule, but merciful in dominion over the rest, except Ethel,
whom he treated as an equal, able to retort in kind, reserving for
her his most highly-flavoured sallies, and his few and distant
approaches to such confidence as showed her how little she knew him.
His father esteemed but did not 'get on with' him, and his chief and
devoted adherent was Aubrey, to whom he was always kind and helpful.
In person Tom was tall and well-made, of intelligent face, of which
his spectacles seemed a natural feature, well-moulded fine-grained
hand, and dress the perfection of correctness, though the precision,
and dandyism had been pruned away.

Ethel would have preferred that Leonard and Averil should not have
walked in on the Saturday after her return, just when Tom had spread
his microscope apparatus over the table, and claimed Mary's
assistance in setting up objects; and she avoided his eye when Mary
and Averil did what he poetically called rushing into each other's
arms, whilst she bestowed her greetings on Leonard and Mab.

'Then she may come in?' said Leonard. 'Henry has banished her from
the drawing-room, and we had much ado to get her allowed even in the
schoolroom.'

'It is so tiresome,' said his sister, 'just one of Henry's fancies.'
Ethel, thinking this disloyal, remarked that those who disliked dogs
in the house could not bear them, and did not wonder that Tom
muttered 'Original.'

'But such a little darling as this!' cried Averil, 'and after Mrs.