A Momentous Decision.
When Frank went home one of the servants told him that his father
particularly wished to see him in the library as soon as he came in. He
went into the library, and found his father and mother both there and
looking rather serious.
"Sit down, Frank," said his father. "We have something to say to you
about which we wish you to think carefully before you decide. Sir
Richard Carleton has been here. He is not only a neighbour but a friend
of mine, although as I do not go out much we seldom meet each other. He
is a widower with one son, a boy about your age. Do you know him?"
"Very slightly, sir."
"Well, this son of his, Dick Carleton, is very delicate; he has grown
very tall and beyond his strength, and the doctor says he must not be
sent to a public school. Now at home he has no boy companions, and he is
moping himself to death. Sir Richard says he takes no interest in
anything; he won't ride or work, and if he goes on like this it will end
in a serious illness. What his father wants to do is to arouse in him
some interest in his life, and to awake him out of the deadly apathy he
is in at present. Sir Richard knows your healthy outdoor mode of life,
and your fondness for Natural History and sport, and he thinks you
might, if you chose, be the means of making his boy take some interest
in the same sort of thing, and if you did so you would in all
probability save his son's life. Now what he proposes is this: That you
should leave the Grammar School at Norwich, and that his son and you
should be placed under the tuition of our Rector until it is time to go
to college. Your education would be as well attended to as at Norwich,
and your mother and I could have no objection to the arrangement, but we
wish you to decide for yourself."
Frank's decision was made at once. The life at the Grammar School was
very jolly, with its cricket and football and the rowing matches on the
river, but if this new arrangement were carried out there would be far
better opportunities of building and sailing the projected yacht, and of
sporting and naturalizing on the broads and rivers, so he at once
answered--
"I shall be very willing to try it, sir; but Jimmy Brett must be
included in the arrangement. I could not desert him, and he would be
miserable without me at school. It would never do to separate us now,
father."
"Well, but do you think his grandmother can afford it? It will be more
expensive than being at the Grammar School."
"Then I tell you what, father and mother: the Rector must only charge
Jimmy the same as the Grammar School, and you must make up the
difference to him, and I will do with less pocket-money."
"You shall not make that sacrifice, darling," said Mrs. Merivale; "we
will put that all right, and I will go and see Mrs. Brett in the
morning."
And so the matter was finally arranged, and that the boys might become
well acquainted with each other, Dick Carleton was invited to stay at
Mr. Merivale's. But before he comes we will just go back a few hours and
follow merry Mary Merivale, as her brother called her, and her younger
sister Florrie, on their search for pupæ.