oil at his profession.

Then mother had more leisure, too; and besides the pleasure of going
with his parents to church, dressed in his best clothes, a privilege
Bert fully appreciated, there was the enjoyment of having her read to
him wonderfully interesting stories from the Bible or Pilgrim's
Progress, and explaining to him whatever puzzled his brain.

If the day was fine, Mary would take him with her to the Sunday school,
where, with a number of youngsters like himself, the hour would pass
quickly enough, as Miss Brightley entertained them with song and story,
and pictures bearing upon the lesson. And then, after Sunday school, in
summer time, his father would lead him off to the old fort, where they
would sit on the grassy ramparts, watching the white sailed ships
cleaving the blue waters, that never seemed more beautiful than on
Sunday afternoon.

But at Maplebank it was all very different. Squire Stewart was a
Presbyterian of the stern old Covenanter stock. To him the Lord's Day
meant a day to be spent in unsmiling strictness of conversation and
demeanour. No laughter, no bright talk, no semblance of joyousness was
sanctioned; nor, indeed, could have existed within the range of his
solemn countenance. He was a grave and silent man at any time, but on
Sunday the gravity of his appearance was little short of appalling. One
meeting him for the first time would certainly have thought that he had
just been visited by some overwhelming affliction. Bert, on the morning
of his first Sunday, coming out of his mother's room, after receiving
the finishing touches to his dress, and dancing along the hall, in
joyous anticipation of the drive in the big carriage to the village, ran
right into his grandfather. Laying a strong hand on the boy's shoulder,
Squire Stewart looked down at him, with disapproval written on every
line of his stern face.

"My boy," said he, in his deepest tones, "know you not that this is the
Sabbath day, and that you are to keep it holy, and not be dancing along
the hall?"

Poor Bert shrank away, with a trembling, "I didn't mean to, sir," and
thenceforth avoided his grandfather as completely as though he were a
criminal and the Squire was a policeman.

Not only at the house, but at the church, did Bert find Sunday a day of
dreariness. And here again, who could blame him? He was only a boy and a
very restless, active boy, at that, to whom one half-hour's sitting
still was about as much as he could