"
"The sentence was faultily constructed, I admit. They were lodging
in the same _pension_ as Mr. Locke. The family consisted of a Mrs.
Robinson, a widow; her son Eustace, aged seventeen; her daughter
Laetitia, a child of fourteen, suffering from a slight pulmonary
complaint; her son's tutor, whose name I forget for the moment, but
he was a graduate of Peterhouse, Cambridge, and an ardent botanist;
and a good-natured English female named Maria Wilkins, an old servant
whom Mrs. Robinson had brought from home--Pewsey, in Wiltshire--to
attend upon this Laetitia. The Robinsons, you gather, were
well-to-do; they were even well connected; albeit their social
position did not quite warrant their story being included in the late
Mr. D'Arcy Smith's 'Tragedies and Vicissitudes of Our County
Families.'
"It appears that the lad Eustace, perceiving that his sister's
delicate health procured her some indulgences, complained of
headaches, which he attributed to a too intense application upon the
'Memorabilia' of Xenophon, and cajoled his mother into packing him
off with the tutor on a holiday expedition to the neighbouring
mountains of Garrigues.
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