m of her future. She might get employment in
one of the schools of cookery.'

'Never again be uneasy about her,' cried Rolfe delightedly. 'She is
provided for. She will grow old with honour, love, obedience, troops of
friends!--A culinary genius! Why, it's the one thing the world is
groaning and clamouring for. Let her burn her school-books. Sacrifice
everything to her Art.--You have rejoiced me with this news.'

Slenderly endowed on the side of humour, Mary Abbott could not feel
sure whether he was really pleased or not; he had to repeat to her,
with all gravity, that he no longer felt anxious on the girl's account.

'For my own part,' said Mary, 'I would rather see her a good cook in a
lady's kitchen, if it came to that, than leading a foolish life at some
so-called genteel occupation.'

'So would any one who has common-sense.--And her brother; I don't think
we can go wrong about him. The reports from school are satisfactory;
they show that he loathes everything but games and fighting. At fifteen
they'll take him on a training ship.--I wonder whether their father's
alive or dead?'

'It is to be hoped they'll never see him again.'

Harvey was smiling--at a thought which he did not communicate.

'You say you wouldn't trust yourself to teach older children. You mean,
of course, that you feel much the difficulty of the whole thing--of all
systems of education.'

'Yes. And I dare say it's nothing but foolish presumption when I fancy
I can teach babies.'

'You have at all events a method,' said Harvey, 'and it seems to be a
very good one. For the teaching of children after they can read and
write, there seems to be no method at all. The old classical education
was fairly consistent, but it exists no longer. Nothing has taken its
place. Muddle, experiment, and waste of lives--too awful to think
about. We're savages yet in the matter of education. Somebody said to
me once: "Well, but look at the results; they're not so bad." Great
heavens! not so bad--when the supreme concern of mankind is to perfect
their instruments of slaughter! Not so bad--when the gaol and the
gallows are taken as a matter of course! Not so bad--when huge filthy
cities are packed with multitudes who have no escape from toil and
hunger but in a wretched death! Not so bad--when all but every man's
life is one long blunder, the result of ignorance and unruled passions!'

Mrs. Abbott showed a warm assent.

'People don't think or care anything ab