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.