Ill 



PRIVATE SCHOOL 13 



a letter," writes Lady Lubbock, " from Mrs. 

 Entwistle the other day which made me very 

 happy : she had been at Abingdon and saw 

 dear John looking well and happy, and says 

 that Mr. and Mrs. Waring spoke of him in the 

 highest terms and said he was 6 not only a very 

 clever boy but one of the most diligent and 

 painstaking they had in their school.' Of course 

 this account of our darling Boy made my dear 

 Sir John and me very happy" 



A little later, just before his leaving home 

 for his first term at Eton, his mother writes : 

 " I grieve over parting with him very sadly. 

 He is so very dear and such a delightful com- 

 panion, so talented, so affectionate, so entirely 

 original, entering into everything so delightfully, 

 quite beyond his years ; and I really could not 

 have supposed he was hardly 11, but could well 

 fancy him a clever boy of 16. Then again his love 

 of reading and his very retentive memory give 

 him a great deal of information, and his taste for 

 Natural History makes him an acute observer." 



Not an impartial estimate, doubtless, but 

 there seems no reason to question its essential 

 justice. The only anxiety that he caused his 

 parents up to this time was on the score of health. 

 As a boy he was always delicate, and constantly 

 suffered from digestive troubles often acute, 

 and perhaps not very well diagnosed. At all 

 events it is evident that after a complete change 

 of treatment, which was not tried however until 

 he was sixteen or seventeen years of age, his 

 health immediately improved and no trace of 

 the delicacy remained. 



