"I can't think about that. No human being knows what Joan has done for me this year. She seemed always to divine just when I couldn't stand things any longer, and there she is by me. I suppose I shouldn't let her be around those rough furnaces so much, but I never can send her away. It made me ashamed the other day when I found she could stand as much of the furnace gas in her lungs as I. You see, she always comes at the worst times to bring me lemonade or something of that sort. The thirst in those gases is awful."
"Yet you think she ought to go elsewhere?"
The answer came unhesitatingly: "I know it. This is no way to bring up a girl."
"I'm not so sure," said the Bishop, easily. "It depends on the girl."
But Tom, his tongue once loosened, went on: "Now if she could spend one year with Aunt Milly—"
The Bishop's mouth twitched. "Well, now, it would be rather funny, wouldn't it, to have the life here curing what was bad for you in your Aunt Milly's training, and Aunt Milly's training curing what is bad for Joan in the life here; No, no; your Aunt Milly would suit for some girls, but not for Joan. She is a little oddity, and not very strong in body. She needs odd treatment. Your father sees that. Let her read and climb all she chooses, but a governess with no domestic authority might be an advisable addition to the family. I'll suggest that to your father; and tell him too that while Joan talks more carefully than a year ago, she has to-night informed me that the baby is the 'very spit of father.'" The Bishop smiled at the memory. "That won't do, of course. Why haven't you talked Joan over with your father?"
"I should as soon think of advising the Pope, uncle. My father," he added, with a little unconscious wistfulness that caught the listener's quick ear—"my father is the finest man I know, but he is not easy to talk with, as you are."
The unconscious comparison did not offend the Bishop. He sat thoughtful for a while before he replied. "I want to tell you something to remember," he said at last. "Some day you and your father will come together, and be all the closer for the momentum you get by being separate now. I know he is a silent man, but wait until you get at what is behind his silence, as I have. Did I ever show you any of his letters to me? I suppose he lets himself out in them as nowhere else, and some of them I have laid away for you children when you are older. Let me see; I think I can show you a part of one now. It struck me as so true I almost stole it for use in a sermon." He drew out some letters from his pocket, and choosing one, he turned it down between certain lines and handed it over to his nephew. Tom read with interest that grew intense as he went on.
"I am sure we both agree," the letter ran, "that the man who earns his education, and his right to eat bread and live, by the sweat of his own brow, has an enormous pull over the man whose education and buttered bread and honey are all paid for by somebody else. At the same time my boy has worked so finely, so manfully and earnestly, at the furnaces this year, I think, and you, my dear brother, will be glad to learn this, that by the coming fall I can venture to send him—"
"Where?" asked Tom, devouring the turned-down page with hungry eyes. His fingers trembled to lift the sheet.