“If a young man, with the best education England can give, and friends to consult, who, I flatter myself, are not idiots, cannot see what to do, it does not say much for his sense,” said Dr Mitford, with some indignation. “I suppose by all this I am to understand that you are tired of the office drudgery and beginning to repent----”
“I don’t know that I have anything to repent of,” said John, who under this questioning began to get rebellious, as sons are wont to do.
“I advise you to make up your mind,” said Dr Mitford, not without a half-tone of contempt. “I never thought you were adapted for business. If experience has shown you this, it is best to take steps at once. You might not like, perhaps, to return to your original destination----”
“Father, this discussion is quite unnecessary,” said John, growing red. “I am not tired of office drudgery. No trade, I suppose, is very delightful just at first; and when one begins to think for one’s self, there are many questions that arise in one’s mind. Yes, mother, I am quite ready. I have been waiting for you this half-hour.”
“But not if your papa wants you, my dear,” said Mrs Mitford, in her white shawl, standing smiling upon them at the door.
“I can look after the Shakespeare when I come in,” said John. That was exactly where Kate had stood peeping--Kate, who, when she was old, would be just such another woman. Would she grow so by his side? Could it ever be that she would come, in all the soft confidence of proprietorship, and look in upon him as his mother did? All at once it flashed upon him that such a thing might have been, in this very place, in this very way, had he kept his traditionary place. He might have been the Rector, putting up his folios, and she the Lady Bountiful of the parish, as his mother was. This flashed across his mind at the very moment when he was asking what use it was, and feeling that a life spent in doing good was as much thrown away as a life spent in making money. Strange inconsistency! And then he went and took the basket, with its little vials of wine and carefully-packed dainties, out of his mother’s hand.
Dr Mitford watched them going away with feelings more odd and strange than he recollected to have experienced for years. He waited till the door was closed, and then he turned abruptly to his books; but these were not satisfactory for the moment, and by-and-by he gave them up and walked impatiently to the window, and saw his wife’s white shawl disappear from the garden gate, with her tall boy by her side shadowing over her in the October sunshine. “His mother!” Dr Mitford said to himself, with a certain snort of wonder and offence--and then went back to his writing-table, and wrote a note to accompany his article to Sylvanus Urban, who was a more comprehensible personage on the whole than either wife or son.