‘Yes, grandfather,’ said John, tranquilly. ‘I know I’m not like the others. I’ve got to make my own way.’
‘Yes; and you’ve got to make it without a family behind you, and friends to push you on as those young Spencers have—though you’ve more in you than both of them put together,’ cried grandpapa, with a little outburst of feeling which John did not at all understand.
John smiled. He was used to hearing that he was a fine fellow, and better than the others, and he took it as a peculiarity of the doting affection these old people had for him, and excused it good-naturedly on that ground: but he knew very well it was not true.
‘The only thing that is wanting to Percy and Dick is that they’re not your boys, grandfather,’ said John—‘yours and grandmamma’s—you would know then that they are quite as good as me—or better, perhaps,’ he added, candidly, feeling that so far as this went there might be reason for a doubt.
‘You will never make us see that,’ said Mrs. Sandford; ‘but I love the boys, bless them, for they’ve always been like brothers to you. And it is saying a deal for the rector and all of them that, though we are not just in their position, they have never hindered it nor made any difference, which they might have done; dear me, oh! yes, they might have done it, and nobody blamed them——’
‘My dear,’ said the old man, in a tone of warning.
‘Oh! yes, yes,’ cried grandmamma. ‘I know; I know——’ And she cried a little, and gave a stolen look at John such as he had caught many a day without ever understanding the meaning of it—a look in which there was something like pity, compassion, and indignation as well as love, as if somebody had wronged him deeply, though he did not know it, and she felt that nothing could ever be too good for him, too tender to make up for it—and yet that nothing ever would wipe out that wrong. All this in one glance is, perhaps, too much to believe in; but John saw it all confusedly, wondering, and not knowing what it could mean.
Mr. Sandford cleared his throat again, and then it was he who began.
‘John,’ he said, ‘we think, and so does your mother think, that it is time to speak to you about what you are going to do——’
‘Yes, grandfather,’ said John. He looked up with a little eagerness, as if he were quite ready and prepared, which, while it made matters much easier, gave the old people a little chill at the same time, as if the boy had been wanting to get away.