Albinia thought that there was but one cure. To leave Gilbert daily
exposed to the temptation must be wrong, and she laid the case before
Mr. Kendal with so much earnestness, that he allowed that it would be
better to send the boy from home; and in the meantime, Albinia
obtained that Mr. Kendal should ride some way on the Tremblam road
with his son in the morning, so as to convoy him out of reach of the
tempter; whilst she tried to meet him in the afternoon, and managed
so that he should be seldom without the hope of meeting her.

Albinia's likings had taken a current absolutely contrary to all her
preconceived notions; Sophia, with her sullen truth, was respected,
but it was not easy to like her even as well as Lucy, who, though
pert and empty, had much good-nature and good-temper, and was not
indocile; while Gilbert, in spite of a weak, shallow character,
habits of deception, and low ungentlemanly tastes, had won her
affection, and occupied the chief of her time and thoughts; and she
dreaded the moment of parting with him, as removing the most
available and agreeable of her young companions.

That moment of parting, though acknowledged to be expedient, did not
approach. Gilbert, could not be sent to a public school without risk
and anxiety which his father did not like, and which would have been
horror to his grandmother; and Albinia herself did not feel certain
that he was fit for it, nor that it was her part to enforce it. She
wrote to her brother, and found that he likewise thought a tutor
would be a safe alternative; but then he must be a perfect man in a
perfect climate, and Mr. Kendal was not the man to make researches.
Mr. Dusautoy mentioned one clergyman who took pupils, Maurice Ferrars
another, but there was something against each. Mr. Kendal wrote four