A MOMENTOUS DECISION. 13 



CHAPTER III. 



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 



