"Do you wish to keep out all _three_ of these inkstands, Jacob? It is not necessary, I should think. Shall I put one up?" The parson took his eyes off his sermon to answer. "I don't see that they do any harm there, Rebecca. The children use two sometimes. Do as you like, however." Mrs. Dean put one of the inkstands into the book-case, and then looked round the room to see what else she could do. A letter caught her eye. "Jacob, I do believe you have never answered the note old Mullet brought this morning! There it is on the mantelpiece." The parson sighed. To be interrupted in this way he took quite as a matter of course, but it teased him a little. "I must see the churchwardens, Rebecca, before answering it. I want to know, you see, what would be approved of by the parish." "Just like you, Jacob," she caressingly said. "The parish must approve of what you approve." "Yes, yes," he said hastily; "but I like to live at peace with every one." He dipped his pen into the ink, and wrote a line of his sermon. The open window looked on to the kitchen-garden. Herbert Tanerton had his back against the walnut-tree, doing nothing. Alice sat near on a stool, her head buried in a book that by its canvas cover Mrs. Dean knew to be "Robinson Crusoe." Just then Jack came out of the raspberry bushes with a handful of fruit, which he held out to Alice. "Robinson Crusoe" fell to the ground. "Oh, Jack, how good they are!" said Alice. And the words came distinctly to Aunt Dean's ears in the still day. "They are as good again when you pick them off the trees for yourself," cried Jack. "Come along and get some, Alice." With the taste of the raspberries in her mouth, the temptation was not to be resisted; and she ran after Jack. Aunt Dean put her head out at the window. "Alice, my love, I cannot have you go amongst those raspberry bushes; you would stain and tear your frock." "I'll take care of her frock, aunt," Jack called back. "My darling Jack, it cannot be. That is her new muslin frock, and she must not go where she might injure it." So Alice sat down again to "Robinson Crusoe," and Jack went his way amongst the raspberry bushes, or whither he would. "Jacob, have you begun to think of what John is to be?" resumed Aunt Dean, as she shut down the window. The parson pushed his sermon from him in a sort of patient hopelessness, and turned round on his chair. "To be?--In what way, Rebecca?" "By profession," she answered. "I fancy it is time it was thought of." "Do you? I'm sure I don't know. The other day when something was being mentioned about it, Jack said he did not care what he was to be, provided he had no books to trouble him." "I only hope you will not have trouble with him, Jacob, dear," observed Mrs. Dean, in ominous tones, that plainly intimated she thought the parson would. "He has a good heart, though he is not so studious as his brother. Why have you shut the window, Rebecca? It is very warm."