This, it will be easy to see, was a very unsatisfactory sort of answer. John got up too, feeling very heavy about the heart. “Relative duty is easy enough,” he said; “but absolute duty, what is it? is there such a thing? Is it not just as good both for myself and other people that I should live for myself as I am doing, instead of living for God and my neighbour like my mother? So far as I can see, it comes to exactly the same thing.” Dr Mitford looked at his son with an absolute astonishment that would have been comical had John been able to see it. But then it was not so much his son’s perplexity the Doctor thought of as that curious, quite inexplicable reference. “Like your mother!” the Rector of Fanshawe Regis said, with utter amazement. It took away his breath. He could not even notice his son’s question in his consternation. “Yes,” said John, not in the least perceiving the point, “what is the good? That is what one asks one’s self; it does not seem to make any difference to the world.” Dr Mitford turned, and put up the dog’s-eared folio on its shelf. He shook his head in his bewilderment, and gave a sigh of impatience. “You young men have a way of talking and of thinking which I don’t understand,” he said, still shaking his head. “I hope to goodness, John, that you have not been led astray by those ridiculous fallacies of Comtism. You may suppose that as you are not to be a clergyman it does not matter what your opinions are; but it always matters. A private Christian has as much need to be right as if he were an archbishop; and I confess, after your careful training, I little expected----a mere farrago of French sentiment and nonsense. Your mother! what she has to do with the question I can’t understand.” “And I am sure neither do I, sir,” said John, moved to a laugh, “nor why you should set me down as a Comtist. I am not an anythingist, worse luck--for then, perhaps, one might see a little more plainly what to do.” “If a young man, with the best education England can give, and friends to consult, who, I flatter myself, are not idiots, cannot see what to do, it does not say much for his sense,” said Dr Mitford, with some indignation. “I suppose by all this I am to understand that you are tired of the office drudgery and beginning to repent----” “I don’t know that I have anything to repent of,” said John, who under this questioning began to get rebellious, as sons are wont to do. “I advise you to make up your mind,” said Dr Mitford, not without a half-tone of contempt. “I never thought you were adapted for business. If experience has shown you this, it is best to take steps at once. You might not like, perhaps, to return to your original destination----”