[Illustration: 'What useful things shall I do?' he asked.
(Illustration missing from book)]
'I don't know; we shall see by-and-bye. I should try and make every one very happy now, if I were you, and learn all I could, so that when you are a man, and can help more people, you may have the power and the wisdom you want.'
'Only think if you were a great scholar,' put in Betty, 'and wrote a book—no, a lot of books, and people had them in their libraries, all bound the same, and with "By Godfrey Wyndham" on the back. Or,' as Godfrey looked only doubtfully pleased, 'if you were a great statesman and made speeches, or suppose you were a soldier and beat the French.'
'Would that be useful?' asked Godfrey of Angel.
'Yes, certainly, very useful if the French were coming to conquer England.'
'Pete is useful, isn't he?' said Godfrey; 'Penny says he's the usefullest man about the place. Perhaps I might be a useful gardener, Auntie Betty; I should like that, and I could plant lots of things then to come up for other people; or couldn't I be a useful miller like Ware? because people must have bread, and I should like a mill.'
'But why can't you be a statesman or a general?' said Betty, rather taken aback.
'I would rather be a gardener like Pete,' persisted Godfrey; 'why can't I? Gardeners are useful.'
'I think,' said Angel, 'because it isn't the state of life into which it has pleased God to call you, Godfrey dear, like the Catechism you were learning. We can't choose always just what we should like to be, we have to do our best just where we are put.'