"I saw him yesterday," was Mr. Andrewes' first remark.
My father's answer I lost; but I caught fragments of Mr. Andrewes' next remarks, which were full of information on this important matter.
"Quite young, good-tempered--little boy so fond of him, nothing would have induced them to part with him; but they were going abroad."
Which sounded well; but I suspected the parson of a good deal of officious advice in a long sentence, of which I only caught the words, "Can't begin too early."
I felt convinced, too, that I heard something about the "use of the whip," which put me into a fever of indignation. Just as Mr. Andrewes was riding off, my father asked some question, to which the reply was--"Gray."
My head was so full of the tutor that I could not enjoy the stroll with my father as usual, and was not sorry to get back to Nurse Bundle, to whom I confided all that I had heard about my future teacher.
"He's a nasty little man," said I, "not a nice tall gentleman like Papa or Mr. Andrewes. And Mr. Andrewes saw him yesterday. And Mr. Andrewes says he's young. And he says he's good-natured; but then what makes him use whips? And his name is Mr. Gray. And he says the other little boy was very fond of him, but I don't believe it," I continued, breaking down at this point into tears, "and they've gone abroad (sobs) and I wish--boohoo! boohoo--they'd taken _him_!"
With some trouble Nurse Bundle found out the meaning of my rather obscure speech. Her wrath at the thought of a whip in connection with her darling was quite as great as my own. But she persisted in taking a hopeful view of Mr. Gray, and trusting loyally to my father's judgment, and she succeeded in softening my grief for the time.
When I came down to dessert that evening I pretended to be quite happy and comfortable, and to have nothing on my mind. But happily few children are clever at pretending what is not true, and as I was constantly thinking about "that dreadful tutor," and puzzling over the scraps of conversation I had heard to see if anything more could be made out of them, my father soon found out that something was amiss.
"Nothing, Father," I replied, with a very poor imitation of cheerfulness and no approach to truth.