Mrs. Dean did not say why. Perhaps she wished to guard against the conversation being heard. When any question not quite convenient to answer was put to her, she had a way of passing it over in silence; and the parson was too yielding or too inert to ask again. "_Of course_, Brother Jacob, you will make Herbert the heir." The parson looked surprised. "Why should you suppose that, Rebecca? I think the two boys ought to share and share alike." "My dear Jacob, how _can_ you think so? Your dead wife left you in charge, remember." "That's what I do remember, Rebecca. She never gave me the slightest hint that she should wish any difference to be made: she was as fond of one boy as of the other." "Jacob, you must do your duty by the boys," returned Mrs. Dean, with affectionate solemnity. "Herbert must be his mother's heir; it is right and proper it should be so: Jack must be trained to earn his own livelihood. Jack--dear fellow!--is, I fear, of a roving, random disposition: were you to leave any portion of the money to him, he would squander it in a year." "Dear me, I hope not! But as to leaving all to his brother--or even a larger portion than to Jack--I don't know that it would be right. A heavy responsibility lies on me in this charge, don't you see, Rebecca?" "No doubt it does. It is full eight-hundred a year. And _you_ must be putting something by, Jacob." "Not much. I draw the money yearly, but expenses seem to swallow it up. What with the ponies kept for the boys, and the cost of the masters from Worcester, and a hundred a year out of it that my wife desired the poor old nurse should have till she died, there's not a great deal left. My living is a poor one, you know, and I like to help the poor freely. When the boys go to the university it will be all wanted." Help the poor freely!--just like him! thought Aunt Dean. "It would be waste of time and money to send Jack to college. You should try and get him some appointment abroad, Jacob. In India, say." The clergyman opened his eyes at this, and said he should not like to see Jack go out of his own country. Jack's mother had not had any opinion of foreign places. Jack himself interrupted the conversation. He came flying up the path, put down a cabbage leaf full of raspberries on the window-sill, and flung open the window with his stained fingers. "Aunt Dean, I've picked these for you," he said, introducing the leaf, his handsome face and good-natured eyes bright and sparkling. "They've never been so good as they are this year. Father, just taste them." Aunt Dean smiled sweetly, and called him her darling, and Mr. Lewis tasted the raspberries. "We were just talking of you, Jack," cried the unsophisticated man--and Mrs. Dean slightly knitted her brows. "Your aunt says it is time you began to think of some profession." "What, yet awhile?" returned Jack. "That you may be suitably educated for it, my boy."