For the rest, there was the opportunity, and if they did not avail themselves of it Scoones' was not to blame.

It was, and perhaps still remains, a most admirable institution of its sort, one, indeed, of which the present chronicler has very grateful recollections.
Among the pupils studying there was a young man named Arthur Thorburn, an orphan, with considerable expectations, who lived with an aunt in a fine old house at Queen Anne's Gate.

He was a brilliant young man, witty and original, but rash and without perseverance, whom his guardians wished to enter the Diplomatic Service, a career in which, without doubt, had he ever attained to it, he would have achieved a considerable failure.

In appearance he was of medium height, round-faced, light-haired, blue-eyed, with a constant and most charming smile, in every way a complete contrast to Godfrey.

Perhaps this was the reason of the curious attachment that the two formed for each other, unless, indeed, such strong and strange affinities have their roots in past individual history, which is veiled from mortal eyes.