He said he thought the law—­to be a judge some day.

“You don’t care for station life?”

“Oh, he does,” his father eagerly interposed.  “He loves it.  But he has had so few chances—­”

“Which is your school, Bob?”

A seminary of no repute was named, and the father again intervened to regret that it was not one of the public schools.  “But they, unfortunately, have been beyond our means—­”

Here Mary broke in with praises of the seminary.  It had such an excellent headmaster, was so conveniently situated—­really better in many ways than one of the great schools—­

And then Robert broke in.

“My dear mother!” he ejaculated, in a compassionate and forbearing way.

“Ah, Bob knows it is not better,” laughed Deb.  “And it isn’t, Mary; you are no authority, my dear.  Which of the public schools do you fancy, Bob?”

He mentioned his choice, and the University scholarships that were to be had there.

“Debbie!” implored Mrs Goldsworthy, under her breath.

“Hush-sh!” hissed her husband.

“You be quiet, Molly,” Deb playfully adjured her.  “This has nothing to do with you, or with anybody except Bob and me.  You come and spend your next vacation with me at Redford, Bob, and then we can talk it all over together.”

She nodded to him meaningly.  He smiled with perfect comprehension.

“How can we thank you,” Mr Goldsworthy murmured emotionally, for he also understood.  “It is too, too—­”

“It’s all right, pater,” the remarkable boy silenced him.  “Aunt Deborah knows how we feel about it.”

Mary sat in stolid silence, for once indifferent to her husband’s dumb command; then tears welled into her tired eyes.  She pocketed her pride for her child’s sake.  It had been her hopeless longing for years to give her darling’s splendid abilities full scope.

“He will repay you, Debbie,” she said.

“Ah, don’t be so grudging—­so ungenerous!” cried Deb.

Tea and cakes were brought in, and Bob, as he was thenceforth to be styled, waited upon his aunt in the correctest manner.  He had by this time taken on an air that seemed to say:  “You and I understand the ropes; you must excuse these poor parents of mine, who were not born with our perceptions.”  And Deb, no more proof against this sort of thing than meaner mortals, had a feeling of special proprietorship in him which she found pleasant, although he was not exactly the heir-on-probation that she could have wished; which, of course, it would have been preposterous to expect in a son of Bennet Goldsworthy’s.  Bennet Goldsworthy accompanied her to the gate when she went away, forbidding Mary to expose herself, hatless, to the wind.  And there the benevolent aunt’s “intentions” were more distinctly formulated.

“I wish to take entire charge of his education, if you will allow me.  He is a very promising boy, and should have all his chances.  Let me send him to the Melbourne Grammar after Christmas, and as a boarder, if you don’t mind.  There are such advantages, both in position and for study, in living at the school.”