'There, now, you'll just leave her to me, the poor dear; and Lance will take you down to the Mead, and find Papa and the girls for you.'
'Oh, thank you, I could not think of your staying. Now pray--'
'Now prays' were to no purpose; Mrs. Harewood professed only to want an excuse for staying at home--she did not want to be done up with running after her girls to the four ends of the Mead, when it was a long step for her to begin with. Off with them.
So when Wilmet was satisfied that Geraldine was comfortable, the five moved off--Felix and Alice, Angel in Wilmet's hand, and Lance's and Robina's tongues wagging so fast that the wonder was how either caught a word of what the other was saying.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Harewood, tossing her bonnet and gloves aside, in perfect indifference to the exposure of the curious structure of red and grey hair she thus revealed, lavished meats and drinks upon her guest, waiting on her with such kindness, that in spite of all weariness and craving for quiet after these deep and wonderful impressions, it was impossible not to enjoy that warmth of heart. There was exactly the tender motherliness that even Wilmet and Sister Constance could not give.
It was charming to hear how fond Mrs. Harewood was of Lance, and how the having such a companion had made it possible to keep her Willie at the cathedral school, where the mixture of lads was great, but the master first-rate. He thought highly of the promise of both; 'but, to tell the truth,' said Mrs. Harewood, as she sat and fanned herself with her husband's trencher cap, looking more than ever like a frog in a strawberry bed, 'though my Willie is the cleverest boy in the school, little good his cleverness would have done him, and he would have been harum-scarum Bill more than ever, if it were not for Lance. So say his father and brother Jack; so that they will not be for his going to a public school unless Lance were sure of it too.'
Mrs. Harewood explained that the year that the barristers--choristers she meant--were sixteen, when their voices were usually unserviceable, they, together with those of like age in the school, were subjected to an examination, and the foremost scholar obtained an exhibition, in virtue of which he could remain free of expense for another two years, and then could try for one of the Minsterham scholarships at one of the colleges at Cambridge. Those who failed, either had to pay like the ordinary schoolboys, or left the school.