Mrs. Sandford was conscious of it, and secretly proud; but you may be sure she took no notice, and would no doubt have shown a little surprise had it been remarked. ‘We want to speak to you,’ she said. ‘John, you are growing a great boy.’ ‘Seventeen last birthday,’ said the grandfather. ‘I had been working for myself a couple of years when I was his age.’ ‘Well, my dear, but it is not John’s fault. You have always said you regretted having so little schooling.’ ‘The question is,’ said old Mr. Sandford, striking his hand against the arm of his chair, ‘whether the education he has been getting counts like schooling. For, you see, he has never been at school. I had my doubts on that subject all along.’ ‘Oh, yes, oh, yes, my dear,’ said the old lady. ‘To be taught by a good man that knows a great deal, like our curate, that is better, surely, than being exposed to meet with bad boys and bad influences in a strange place.’ John listened to this conversation, turning his face from one to the other. He was quite used to be discussed so, and thought it the natural course of affairs--but here it seemed to him that he might intervene in his own person. ‘Grandpapa,’ he said, ‘Mr. Cattley says Elly and I construe much better than Dick and Percy, though they have been so many years at school.’ ‘Does he really, John!’ said Mrs. Sandford, and her old eyes got wet directly with pleasure; but grandpapa still shook his head. ‘I don’t know much about construing,’ he said; ‘I never had time to study any outlandish tongues, but you and Dick, as you call him, and Percy are very different; one’s going to the army and one to Oxford, as I hear; but as for you, my Johnny-boy----’ Here Mr. Sandford winked his eyes, too; for, though he had begun with the intention of taking his John down a little, and showing him that he was far from being so fine a gentleman as he thought--when it came to the point, the old grandfather did not himself like the idea, and felt that his John was much more of a gentleman than any other boy he knew. ‘Yes, grandfather,’ said John, tranquilly. ‘I know I’m not like the others. I’ve got to make my own way.’ ‘Yes; and you’ve got to make it without a family behind you, and friends to push you on as those young Spencers have--though you’ve more in you than both of them put together,’ cried grandpapa, with a little outburst of feeling which John did not at all understand. John smiled. He was used to hearing that he was a fine fellow, and better than the others, and he took it as a peculiarity of the doting affection these old people had for him, and excused it good-naturedly on that ground: but he knew very well it was not true. ‘The only thing that is wanting to Percy and Dick is that they’re not your boys, grandfather,’ said John--‘yours and grandmamma’s--you would know then that they are quite as good as me--or better, perhaps,’ he added, candidly, feeling that so far as this went there might be reason for a doubt.