Yet boys will be boys, and who can gauge the depths of a nature below the smiles that ripple on the surface?
It was little incidents like these which occasionally suggested to Railsford, far more forcibly than the lugubrious warnings of his officious friends, that the task before him at Grandcourt would tax his powers considerably.

But, on the whole, he rejoiced that all would not be plain-sailing at first, and that there was no chance of his relapsing immediately into the condition of a humdrum pedagogue.
The Christmas holidays slipped away only too fast for Arthur and for Daisy.

Mark, much as he felt the approaching separation from his betrothed, could not suppress a slight feeling of exultation as the day drew near when he was to "go, see, and conquer" at Grandcourt.

His three idle years made the prospect of hard work now welcome; and the importance which everyone else attached to his new duties made him doubly keen for a fray on which so many eyes were turned.
Dr Ponsford had suggested, in terms which amounted to a mandate, that the new master might find it convenient to arrive at Grandcourt a day before the school returned, in order to take possession of his quarters and acquaint himself with the details of his coming duties.

This arrangement was not altogether satisfactory, for it deprived Mark of the pleasure of his future brother-in-law's escort, which was a great loss, and also of the prospect of finding Grover at his journey's end, on which he had reckoned with some confidence.