Grandfather gave her a look which was almost fierce, a look of angry severity, imposing silence; and then he resumed-- ‘Your mother left it to us, to do what we thought best; and we had that anxiety for you to keep you happy that I said unless you asked--and strange it is you never asked before, though it’s not far off ten years you have been with us. You can’t remember much about him, John.’ ‘I do, though--I remember him quite well. How he would come and take me out of bed and carry me downstairs, and how jolly he was. I don’t perhaps think of him much, but when I do, I remember him perfectly. He was ruddy and big, and had bright merry eyes--I can see him now----’ The old lady gave a little whimpering cry. ‘Poor Robert! poor Robert! You may say what you like, but the boy is like him, not like any of us,’ she said. ‘Hold your tongue!’ said her husband, peremptorily. ‘Merry, yes, he was merry enough in his time; but it doesn’t make other folks merry that kind----’ And there was again a little pause. John’s curiosity was aroused, and his interest: but yet he was not greatly moved--for anything connected with his father was so vague for him and far away. ‘Well, grandfather? he said at last. ‘Well,’ said the old man, slowly, ‘there is not very much to say; the short and the long of it is that--hush, woman, I tell you! he is just--dead. That is all there is to say.’ ‘Dead!’ John was startled. He repeated the word in an awestruck and troubled tone. He did not know what he had expected. And yet the moment he thought of it--and thought goes so quick!--he had gone through the whole in a moment like a flash of light, realising the long separation, the utter silence, through which there never came any news. Of course, that was the only thing that was possible. He said, after a time, ‘I ought to have known. It must have been that. Never to hear of him for so many years--’ ‘Yes, to be sure,’ grandfather said. ‘He didn’t do well in his business, and he went abroad, and then he died----’ ‘I ought to have known--it must have been that,’ said John. CHAPTER IV. JOHN’S CHOICE.