hunger for righteousness; and the pure in heart shall live with Him.
Sir, do you desire that He shall come now?"

Trenholme did not give answer as before.

"Poor fellow," said the Presbyterian, pityingly.

The shower was passing over, and they moved away.

The old man lifted his arm, and pointed to the mountain that stood in
all the beauty of its wet verdure. He looked round upon them all, and
there was unusual show of excitement in his manner.

"I have a message to you," he said. "Before another Lord's, day comes,
_He_ will come."

The two ministers heard him as they walked away, and the Scotchman
thought to go back and reprove such an audacious word.

"He is mad; they all know that he is mad," urged Trenholme, dissuading
him.

They looked back, and saw the old man still preaching to the labourers
under the tree. A mare with its foal, and two half-grown colts, had come
up to an open fence within the tree's shadow, and, with their long
gentle heads hanging over, they too seemed to be listening.

The Scotchman, exhilarated by the cooling of the atmosphere, genially
invited Trenholme to a longer walk. Chellaston Mountain, with its cool
shades and fine prospect, was very near. A lane turned from the high
road, which led to the mountain's base. A hospitable farmhouse stood
where the mountain path began to ascend, suggesting sure offer of an
evening meal. Trenholme looked at the peaceful lane, the beautiful hill,
and all the sunny loveliness of the land, and refused the invitation. He
had not time, he said.

So they walked back the mile they had come, and Trenholme little thought
how soon, and with what agitation, he would pass that way again.

CHAPTER XVIII.

The next day, before Trenholme had had time to devise a plan for seeing
Miss Rexford, Mrs. Martha brought him a telegram. She watched him as he
drew his finger through the poor paper of the envelope, watched him as
one might watch another on the eve of some decisive event; yet she could
not have expected much from a telegram--they came too often.

"Ha!" cried Trenholme, "we are going to have visitors, Mrs. Martha."

A good deal to Trenholme's surprise, the message was from Alec, and from
a point no further away than Quebec. It stated that he was there with
Bates, who was ill, and he thought the best thing would be to bring him
with him to Chellaston, if his brother had house-room enough.

The answers we give to such appeals are more often the o