Seeing it occupied, she paused in the outer shade of the great branches.
"You are thinking out your sermon?" she asked, smiling.
He nodded. "You seem tired," he remarked, eyeing her; but he did not rise or pick up his Bible to make room for her.
"A little," she confessed; "and my ears are hot. But Charles very good-naturedly left his De Oratore—on which I heard him say he was engaged—to relieve me. Johnny Whitelamb had to finish colouring a map."
"I don't think Charles needs much persuasion just now to leave his studies."
"He will not require them if he is to be an Irish squire."
"You count upon his choosing that?" John's frown grew deeper.
"Not if you dissuade him, Jack."
"I have not even discussed it with him. Once or twice on our way down he seemed to be feeling his way to a confidence and at the last moment to fight shy. No doubt he knows my opinion well enough. 'What is a man profited if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul?' But why should my opinion have so much weight with him?"
For a moment Molly considered her brother's cold and handsome young face. She put out a hand, plucked a twig from a low drooping bough, and peeling the gummy rind, quoted softly: