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 about education.  Seriously, I suppose it has less place in the thoughts of most men and women than any other business of life?’

‘Undoubtedly,’ said Rolfe.  ’And one is thought a pedant and a bore if one ever speaks of it.  It’s as much against good manners as to begin talking about religion.  But a pedant must relieve his mind sometimes.  I’m so glad I met you today; I wanted to hear what you thought about the boy.’

For the rest of the way, they talked of lighter things; or rather, Rolfe talked and his companion listened.  Nothing more difficult than easy chat between a well-to-do person of abundant leisure and one whose days are absorbed in the earning of a bare livelihood.  Mary Abbott had very little matter for conversation beyond the circle of her pursuits; there was an extraordinary change in her since the days of her married life,