some fresh question. As long as these related to my acquirements
or my reading, I shuffled uneasily and did not know what to
answer. By-and-by he got round to the more practical subject of
railroads, and on this I was more at home. I really had taken an
interest in my work; nor would Mr Holdsworth, indeed, have kept
me in his employment if I had not given my mind as well as my
time to it; and I was, besides, full of the difficulties which
beset us just then, owing to our not being able to find a steady
bottom on the Heathbridge moss, over which we wished to carry our
line. In the midst of all my eagerness in speaking about this, I
could not help being struck with the extreme pertinence of his
questions. I do not mean that he did not show ignorance of many
of the details of engineering: that was to have been expected;
but on the premises he had got hold of; he thought clearly and
reasoned logically. Phillis--so like him as she was both in body
and mind--kept stopping at her work and looking at me, trying to
fully understand all that I said. I felt she did; and perhaps it
made me take more pains in using clear expressions, and arranging
my words, than I otherwise should.

'She shall see I know something worth knowing, though it mayn't
be her dead-and-gone languages,' thought I.

'I see,' said the minister, at length. 'I understand it all.
You've a clear, good head of your own, my lad,--choose how you
came by it.'

'From my father,' said I, proudly. 'Have you not heard of his
discovery of a new method of shunting? It was in the Gazette. It
was patented. I thought every one had heard of Manning's patent