"Yours must be a very unusual kind of uncle!" he returned.

"If God had made many men like my uncle, I think the world wouldn't be
the same place."

"I wonder why he didn't!" he said thoughtfully.

"I have wondered much, and cannot tell," I replied.

"What if it wouldn't be good for the world to have many good men in it
before it was ready to treat them properly?" he suggested.

The words let me know that at least he could think. Hitherto my uncle had
seemed to me the only man that thought. But I had seen very few men.

"Perhaps that is it," I answered. "I will think about it.--Were you
brought up at Rising? Have you been there all the time? Were you there
that night? I should surely have known had you been in the house!"

He looked at me with a grateful smile.

"I was not brought up there," he answered. "Rising is mine, however--at
least it will be when I come of age; it was left me some ten years ago by
a great-aunt My father's property will be mine too, of course. My
mother's is in Ireland. She ought to be there, not here; but she likes my
estates better than her own, and makes the most of being my guardian."

"You would not have her there if she is happier here?"