“Oh, but Ann, my dear Ann!” exclaimed Penhallow, not knowing what more to say, annoyed at the discussion and at her display of unnecessary temper and the entire loss of her usual common sense.

She said, with a laugh in which there was no mirth, “I presume one of you will, of course, run my sewing-class?”

“Ann—­Ann!” said the Squire.

Rivers understood her now in the comprehending sympathy of his own too frequent moods of melancholy.  “Ah!” he murmured, “if I could but teach her how to knit the ravelled sleeve of care.”

“I presume,” she added, “that I am to accept it as settled,” and so went out.

“Come, John,” said Penhallow an hour later, “call the dogs—­I must have a good hard tramp, and a talk with you!”

John kept pace with, the rapid stride of the Squire, taking note of the reddening buds of the maples, for this year in the hills the spring came late.

“You must have seen your aunt’s condition,” said Penhallow.  “I have seen it coming on ever since that miserable affair of Josiah.  It troubled her greatly.”

John had the puzzled feeling of the inexperienced young in regard to the matter of illness and its influential effect on temper, and was well pleased to converse on anything else, when his uncle asked, “Have you thought over what I said to you about your future?”

“Well?”

“I should like to go to West Point, Uncle Jim.”

To his surprise Penhallow returned, pausing as he spoke, “I had thought of that, but as I did not know you had ever considered it, I did not mention it.  It would in some ways please me.  As a life-long career it would not.  We are in no danger of war, and an idle existence at army-posts is not a very desirable thing for an able man.”

“I had the idea, uncle, that I would not remain in the service.”

“But you would have to serve two years after you were graduated—­and still that was what I did, oh! and longer—­much longer.  As an education in discipline and much else, it is good—­very good.  But tell me are you really in earnest about it?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Well, it is better than college.  I will think about it.  If you go to the Point, it should be this coming fall.  I wonder what Ann will say.”

Then John knew that the Squire favoured what had been for a long time on his own mind.  What had made him eager to go into the army was in part that tendency towards adventure which had been a family trait and his admiration for the soldier-uncle; nor did the mere student life and the quiet years of managing the iron-mills as yet appeal to him as desirable.

“I wish, Uncle Jim, that you could settle the matter.”

This was so like his own dislike of unsettled affairs that the Squire laughed in his hearty way.  “So far as I am concerned, you may regard it as decided; but securing a nomination to the Point is quite another matter.  It may be difficult.  I will see about it.  Now we will let it drop.  That dog is pointing.  Ah! the rascal.  It is a hare.”