“When is a mother not a mother?” he said. “--Do you give it up?--When she's a north wind. When she's a Roman emperor. When she's an iceberg. When she's a brass tiger.--There! that'll do. Good-bye, mother, for the present! I mayn't know much, as she's always telling me, but I do know that a noun is not a thing, nor a name a person!” I would have expostulated. “For love's sake, dearest,” he pleaded, “we will not dispute where only one of us knows! I will tell you all some day--soon, I hope, very soon. I am angry now!--Poor little tramping child!” I saw I had been behaving presumptuously: I had wanted to argue while yet in absolute ignorance of the thing in hand! Had not my uncle taught me the folly of reasoning from the ideal where I knew nothing of the actual! The ideal must be our guide how to treat the actual, but the actual must be there to treat! One thing more I saw--that there could be no likeness between his mother and my uncle! “Will you tell me something about yourself, then?” I said. “That would not be interesting!” he objected. “Then why are you here?” I returned. “Can any person without a history be interesting?” “Yes,” he answered: “a person that was going to have a history might be interesting.” “Could a person with a history that was not worth telling, be interesting? But I know yours will interest me in the hearing, therefore it ought to interest you in the telling. “I see,” he rejoined, with his merry laugh, “I shall have to be careful! My lady will at once pounce upon the weak points of my logic!” “I am no logician,” I answered; “I only know when I don't know a thing. My uncle has taught me that wisdom lies in that.” “Yours must be a very unusual kind of uncle!” he returned. “If God had made many men like my uncle, I think the world wouldn't be the same place.” “I wonder why he didn't!” he said thoughtfully. “I have wondered much, and cannot tell,” I replied. “What if it wouldn't be good for the world to have many good men in it before it was ready to treat them properly?” he suggested. The words let me know that at least he could think. Hitherto my uncle had seemed to me the only man that thought. But I had seen very few men. “Perhaps that is it,” I answered. “I will think about it.--Were you brought up at Rising? Have you been there all the time? Were you there that night? I should surely have known had you been in the house!” He looked at me with a grateful smile. “I was not brought up there,” he answered. “Rising is mine, however--at least it will be when I come of age; it was left me some ten years ago by a great-aunt My father's property will be mine too, of course. My mother's is in Ireland. She ought to be there, not here; but she likes my estates better than her own, and makes the most of being my guardian.” “You would not have her there if she is happier here?”