"Oh well, I think he'd do well in a garden. He's quite learned about flowers; and, if You ever saw him handle one, You'd wonder however a chap with a chest and arms like a blacksmith, as his are, could be so tender. There's a lot more force and there's a lot more gentleness in him than You'd think. Same with trees. He looks at them as we look at other chaps--just as though he could speak to them and make them understand him if he wanted to. He'd do well at anything out of doors, farming perhaps. I did think at first of the sea----" "Because of his wonderful eyes?" "Oh yes I suppose that was the reason. Did ever You see such a blue, a blue that makes you want to strip and dive,--just the eyes for a sailor, aren't they? That's simply my romance though. But I haven't talked to him much about the sea. Do You know what I should like to do? I should like to go a long sea-voyage with him in one of those old sailing-ships, and take the Pliny and the Sophokles which You gave me, and a lexicon, and a dictionary, and read them with him, right away from--of course I don't mean what You think I mean." "No: of course you don't. And then, when you come back from your long sea-voyage in a sailing ship, you think that Macleod could be useful and happy on a flower-farm, with orchards, and all that sort of rot, while you could sit in the shade of medlar-trees and rose-bushes, and look after him so that no one should insult him, and read books, (write them too perhaps,) and dream dreams, (and certainly write those,) and live happily in a dear old-fashioned farm-house ever after----" "Oh You're laughing at me now!" "Not at all." The bright brown eyes became grave. "John, what are you going to do with yourself when Hadrian is dead?" "Oh but You're not going to die----" "How do you know? Answer the question." "Oh I haven't thought about it. I don't want to think about it: that's all." "Nonsense. Think about it; and be done with it. John, when We are dead, if you have a place like that, and means to work it, means to move about and use yourself--will you use yourself? And will you take Macleod and be a brother--not a real but the Ideal Brother to him?" "Oh of course I would: but----" "Will you promise?" "Oh yes, I promise You most faithfully. But I hope to God I'll never have the chance----"