Mrs. Sandford came up after a little while, followed by the maid with a tray. She had much too good manners to let the guest take this refreshment by himself, accordingly there were two tea-cups with the little teapot. And the old lady’s eyes were a little red, if anyone had remarked it. She had been doing more than making tea. She had run up to her own room and cried a little there in the dark over all the confusing troubles of the past, and over the new chapter which was opening. She said to herself,
‘Oh! I don’t approve it—I don’t approve it!’ But what did it matter what she approved, when it was certain that he (which was the only name she ever gave her husband) and Emily would have it their own way?
‘I suppose,’ said the gentle curate, ‘that it is all settled, and that it is I now that am to have holiday. I shall miss the young ones dreadfully. I don’t know what I shall do without them. It will make all the difference in the world to me.’
‘You see, sir,’ said Grandfather Sandford, who had a faint and uncomfortable feeling that it was the want of those little payments which had been made for John which would make the great difference to the curate, ‘as it doesn’t suit us to carry him on for what you may call a learned education, we think it’s better for the boy not to lose more time.’
‘Not meaning that he ever could be losing time with you, Mr. Cattley!’
‘Mr. Cattley knows I don’t mean that: but only that he has to work and make his own way.’
‘I understand perfectly,’ said the curate, ‘and you are quite right. When a boy has to go into active life it is far better that he should begin early. Don’t think I disapprove. John and I have been great friends, and I shall miss him sadly. But he has really got as much from me as I can give him—unless it were a little more Greek: and I’m afraid there is not much practical advantage in Greek.’
‘Learning anything,’ said old Mr. Sandford, in a respectful sort of apologetic tone, ‘is always a practical advantage. If you know how to learn Greek, you’ll know how to learn anything. So the time can never be said to be lost.’
Mr. Cattley laughed a little quietly, and made a mental note of this as something to tell Mrs. Egerton. It amused him very much that the old man should patronise learning and explain to himself how Greek could do harm: but still there is no doubt that Mr. Sandford was quite right from his point of view.
‘I wish he had taken a little more to figures,’ said the old gentleman; ‘figures are very useful in every way of life. I would teach more sums than anything else if I were one that was engaged in instructing youth.’