 had had him taught Latin and Greek, of an
evening; he had taken kindly to these languages and had rapidly and easily
mastered what many boys take years in acquiring. I suppose his knowledge gave
him a self-confidence which made itself felt whether he intended it or no; at
any rate he soon began to pose as a judge of literature, and from this to being
a judge of art, architecture, music and everything else. The path was easy. Like
his father he knew the value of money, but he was at once more ostentatious and
less liberal than his father; while yet a boy he was a thorough little man of
the world, and did well rather upon principles which he had tested by personal
experiment and recognised as principles, than from those profounder convictions
which in his father were so instinctive that he could give no account concerning
them.
    His father, as I have said, wondered at him and let him alone. His son had
fairly distanced him, and in an inarticulate way the father knew it perfectly
well. After a few years he took to wearing his best clothes whenever his son
came to stay with him, nor would he discard them for his ordinary ones till the
young man had returned to London. I believe old Mr. Pontifex along with his
pride and affection felt also a certain fear of his son, as though of something
which he could not thoroughly understand, and whose ways, notwithstanding
outward agreement, were nevertheless not as his ways; Mrs. Pontifex however felt
nothing of this; to her, George was pure and absolute perfection, and she saw,
or thought she saw, with pleasure, that he resembled her and her family in
feature as well as in disposition rather than her husband, and his.
    When George was about twenty-five years old his uncle took him into
partnership on very liberal terms. He had little cause to regret this step. The
young man infused fresh vigour into a concern that was already vigorous, and by
the time he was thirty found himself in the receipt of not less than £1500 a
year as his share of the profits. Two years later he married a lady about seven
years younger than himself who brought him a handsome dowry; she died however in
1805 when her youngest child Alethæa was born, and her husband did not marry
again.
 

                                   Chapter 3

In the early years of this century five little children and a couple of nurses
began to make periodical visits to Paleham. It is needless to say they were a
rising generation of Pontifexes towards whom the old couple, their grandparents,
were as tenderly deferential
