This visit was made; and it ended in Mark going back to Exeter with a letter full of praise from the widowed peeress.

She had been delighted, she said, in having such a companion for her son, and expressed a hope that the boys might remain together during the course of their education.

Dr.Robarts was a man who thought much of the breath of peers and peeresses, and was by no means inclined to throw away any advantage which might arise to his child from such a friendship.

When, therefore, the young lord was sent to Harrow, Mark Robarts went there also.
That the lord and his friend often quarrelled, and occasionally fought,--the fact even that for one period of three months they never spoke to each other--by no means interfered with the doctor's hopes.
Mark again and again stayed a fortnight at Framley Court, and Lady Lufton always wrote about him in the highest terms.

And then the lads went together to Oxford, and here Mark's good fortune followed him, consisting rather in the highly respectable manner in which he lived, than in any wonderful career of collegiate success.