‘I hope so. I hope so, dear! You have never seen anything all your life that could incline you in any such way, have you, John? But remember you have never been in any temptation--and till one is in temptation one can never tell what may happen. I think, my dear, we will go home.’ They had many little conversations of this kind. The old lady would begin upon any subject, it did not matter what, and then by degrees she would come to this: ‘I have seen so much in my life. I have seen many young people grow up everything that could be wished, as you have done, John; and then, as soon as they came into temptation, they have gone astray. Nobody knows till he has been tried: and it is not the disagreeable ones, the ones that you would dislike, that go: sometimes the very nicest, John--those that are the kindest, the tenderest. That is a great mystery. None of us can fathom it.’ ‘It does seem very strange,’ said the attentive boy, listening at once out of respect and out of the cheerful curiosity of his age, often with a sense that he knew better, but far too considerate and kind, as well as conscious of the fitness of things, to let her see this. She had seen so much: and yet to one who had begun to know a little philosophy and a number of books, how little it seemed that grandmamma could know. ‘Oh! it’s very strange,’ she said. ‘I’ve lain in bed for hours thinking of it, and I’ve gone about the house for days thinking of it, and yet I never come any nearer. Do you remember what it says in the Bible, about the potter making one vessel to dishonour and another to honour? Oh! but, John, it seems sometimes more than that! It seems as if He took the vessels that had been made for honour, and dashed them down on the ground and let them all break into shreds and miserable fragments. You can’t think what it is to stand and look on at that, and be able to do nothing, nothing!’ John was sitting by the side of her sofa: for they had come in: and he saw with wonder, yet great respect, that the tears had come to her eyes. ‘But, surely, grandmamma,’ he said, seriously, ‘it must be their own fault.’