in his
library, holding an interview with some of his elder pupils. He had a
pleasant manner with boys; his rule was to make friends with them as
much as possible; and if he was not the darling of their hearts, he was
as dear to them as a pedagogue ever is to a class under his authority.
When he saw Alec's letter, his heart within him leaped with hope and
quailed with fear. It is only a few times during his life that a man
regards a letter in this way, and usually after long suspense on a
subject which looms large in his estimate of things. When he could
disengage himself, he tore it open, and the first question with which
he scanned it concerned Alec only--was he in trouble? had he carried out
his threat of evil-doing? or was it well with him?

Robert Trenholme was not now merely of the stuff of which men of the
world are made. Could we but know it, a man's mind probably bears to his
religion no very different relation from what his body bears; his creed,
opinions, and sentiments are more nearly allied to what St. Paul calls
"the flesh" than they are to the hidden life of the man, with which God
deals. To the inner spring of Robert Trenholme's life God had access, so
that his creed, and the law of temperance in him, had, not perfection,
but vitality; and the same vitality, now permitted, now refused, by
unseen inlets flowed into all he did and was, and his estimate of things
was changed. He, in subtle selfishness, did much, almost all he could,
to check and interrupt the incoming life, although indeed he prayed, and
often supposed his most ardent desire was, to obtain it. Such is the
average man of faith; such was Robert Trenholme--a better thing, truly,
than a mere man, but not outwardly or inwardly so consistent.

The great fear he had when he opened this letter was that he had caused
his brother to stumble; the great hope, that, because of his prayers,
Heaven would grant it should not be so; but when, on the first hasty
glance over the pages, he discovered that Alec was well, and was
apparently amusing himself in a harmless way, that fear and hope
instantly glided into the background; he hardly knew that they had both
been strong, so faded did they look in the light of the commonplace
certainty.

The next question that pressed assumed an air of paramount importance.
He had asked Alec to enter some honourable mercantile profession. He had
pressed this in the first interview, when the hot-tempered young man had
le