Harry was silent, and so was Hugh; for he could not understand himself quite.  He felt, all the time he was speaking, is if he were listening to David, instead of talking himself.  The fact was, he was only expanding, in an imaginative soil, the living seed which David had cast into it.  There seemed to himself to be more in his parable than he had any right to invent.  But is it not so with all stories that are rightly rooted in the human?

“What a delightful story, Mr. Sutherland!” said Harry, at last.  “Euphra tells me stories sometimes; but I don’t think I ever heard one I liked so much.  I wish we were meant to grow into something, like the flower-seeds.”

“So we are, Harry.”

“Are we indeed?  How delightful it would be to think that I am only a seed, Mr. Sutherland!  Do you think I might think so?”

“Yes, I do.”

“Then, please, let me begin to learn something directly.  I haven’t had anything disagreeable to do since you came; and I don’t feel as if that was right.”

Poor Harry, like so many thousands of good people, had not yet learned that God is not a hard task-master.

“I don’t intend that you should have anything disagreeable to do, if I can help it.  We must do such things when they come to us; but we must not make them for ourselves, or for each other.”

“Then I’m not to learn any more Latin, am I?” said Harry, in a doubtful kind of tone, as if there were after all a little pleasure in doing what he did not like.

“Is Latin so disagreeable, Harry?”

“Yes; it is rule after rule, that has nothing in it I care for.  How can anybody care for Latin?  But I am quite ready to begin, if I am only a seed—­really, you know.”

“Not yet, Harry.  Indeed, we shall not begin again—­I won’t let you—­till you ask me with your whole heart, to let you learn Latin.”

“I am afraid that will be a long time, and Euphra will not like it.”

“I will talk to her about it.  But perhaps it will not be so long as you think.  Now, don’t mention Latin to me again, till you are ready to ask me, heartily, to teach you.  And don’t give yourself any trouble about it either.  You never can make yourself like anything.”

Harry was silent.  They returned to the house, through the pouring rain; Harry, as usual, mounted on his big brother.

As they crossed the hall, Mr. Arnold came in.  He looked surprised and annoyed.  Hugh set Harry down, who ran upstairs to get dressed for dinner; while he himself half-stopped, and turned towards Mr. Arnold.  But Mr. Arnold did not speak, and so Hugh followed Harry.

Hugh spent all that evening, after Harry had gone to bed, in correcting his impressions of some of the chief stories of early Roman history; of which stories he intended commencing a little course to Harry the next day.