“Austin teach in the Sunday-school!  He’d be more in his place if he went there as a scholar than as a teacher,” said Aunt Charlotte, derisively.

“I don’t know why you should say that,” remarked Austin, with perfect gravity.  “I think it would be delightful.  I should make a beautiful Sunday-school teacher, I’m convinced.”

“There, now!” exclaimed the vicar, approvingly.

Austin was standing under an apple-tree, and over him stretched a horizontal branch laden with ripening fruit.  He raised his hands on either side of his head and clasped it, and then began swinging his wooden leg round and round in a way that bade fair to get on Aunt Charlotte’s nerves.  He was so proud of that leg of his, while his aunt abhorred the very sight of it.

“No doubt they’re all very charming boys, and I should love to tell them things,” he went on.  “I think I’d begin with ’The Gods of Greece’—­Louis Dyer, you know—­and then I’d read them a few carefully-selected passages from the ‘Phaedrus.’  Then, by way of something lighter, and more appropriate to their circumstances, I’d give them a course of Virgil—­the ‘Georgics’, because, I suppose, most of them are connected with farming, and the ‘Eclogues,’ to initiate them into the poetical side of country life.  When once I’d brought out all their latent sense of the Beautiful—­for I’m afraid it is latent——­”

“But it’s a Sunday-school!” interrupted the vicar, horrified.  “Virgil and the Phaedrus indeed!  My dear boy, have you taken leave of your senses?  What in the world can you be thinking of?”

“Then what would you suggest?” enquired Austin, mildly.

“You’d have to teach them the Bible and the Catechism, of course,” said Mr Sheepshanks, with an air of slight bewilderment.

“H’m—­that seems to me rather a limited curriculum,” replied Austin, dubiously.  “I only remember one passage in the Catechism, beginning, ‘My good child, know this.’  I forget what it was he had to know, but it was something very dull.  The Bible, of course, has more possibilities.  There is some ravishing poetry in the Bible.  Well, I can begin with the Bible, if you really prefer it, of course.  The Song of Solomon, for instance.  Oh, yes, that would be lovely!  I’ll divide it up into characters, and make each boy learn his part—­the shepherd, the Shulamite, King Solomon, and all the rest of them.  The Spring Song might even be set to music.  And then all those lovely metaphors, about the two roes that were twins, and something else that was like a heap of wheat set about with lilies.  Though, to be sure, I never could see any very striking resemblance between the objects typified and——­”

“Hold your tongue, do, Austin!” cried Aunt Charlotte, scandalised.  “And for mercy’s sake, keep that leg of yours quiet, if you can.  You are fidgeting me out of my wits.”

Mr Sheepshanks, his mouth pursed up in a deprecating and uneasy smile, sat gazing vaguely in front of him.  “I think it might be wise to defer the Song of Solomon,” he suggested.  “A few simple stories from the Book of Genesis, perhaps, would be better suited to the minds of your young pupils.  And then the sublime opening chapters——­”