‘Yes?’ cried Mrs. Sandford, putting away her knitting altogether, as if in the importance of this discussion the mere touch of the work irritated her. The old gentleman lifted a finger as if in warning. ‘Don’t you excite yourself, my dear,’ he said. ‘Poor fellow,’ said Mr. Cattley. ‘He was much older than I: but he died young, broken-hearted. He was not the resolute sort of fellow that gets on. He got his accounts into a muddle somehow----’ ‘Yes!’ cried Mrs. Sandford again. She was as eager as if this were something pleasant that was being told her; whereas the curate had his eyes fixed, meditatively, on the fire, and spoke slowly and with regret. ‘He was not much more than a boy,’ said Mr. Cattley. ‘It’s a long time ago, when I was a child. I believe it never could be found out how it was--whether he had lost the money or spent it without knowing, or whether some one had taken it. Nobody blamed him, but he never got over it. It broke his heart.’ ‘Ah!’ said Mrs. Sandford, with a gasp for breath. But she seemed a little disappointed--as if she were sorry--though that of course must have been impossible--that the curate’s brother was not to blame. ‘Things do happen like that,’ said the old gentleman, breathing what seemed like a sigh of relief. ‘And sometimes it’s partly a young fellow’s fault, and partly it isn’t. But my wife and I, we’ve seen so much of it, living near Liverpool at one time, which is a great business place, that it’s not at all the kind of life we would choose for John.’ ‘Oh, John would be all right,’ said Mr. Cattley, ‘but I’m sorry I have been so unfortunate in my first shot. I don’t doubt, however, that he has a very fair guess what he wants to be himself.’ ‘I didn’t know,’ said John, ‘you had any objection to business. I should have liked an office as well as anything, for then one could have been upon one’s own hook at once, and got a salary, and not needed to come upon you.’ ‘Oh, Johnnie, my boy, did we ever grudge you anything that you say that?’ ‘Nothing, grandmamma! and that’s why I should like to do for myself when I begin: but then I’ll do nothing that wouldn’t please you. May I speak out quite what I should like? Well, then, Mr. Cattley knows. I’d like to build bridges and lighthouses, especially lighthouses; that’s to say, I’d like to be an engineer.’ ‘An engineer!’ They looked at each other again, but not with any secret communications, in simple surprise and mutual consultation. ‘Nobody belonging to you ever was that before,’ Mrs. Sandford said. ‘Yes, that is something quite new,’ said the grandfather. ‘I thought he’d have favoured farming, or to try for an agency, or, perhaps, the corn-factoring trade. Well, it is none the worse that I know of for being something new.’ ‘The worst is that it takes a great deal of learning,’ said John, doubtfully. ‘Mr. Cattley knows, grandfather. You have to serve your time, and to work hard: but I don’t mind the work.’