was announced he felt a thrill of tender feeling to
which he had long been a stranger. He got up and waited. The young man
with his mother's face and the eyes of an enthusiast was coming down the
long corridor.

John Storm saw his uncle first in the spacious old cabinet room which
looks out on the little garden and the Park. He was a gaunt old man with,
meagre mustache and hair, and a face like a death's head. He held out his
hand and smiled. His hand was cold and his smile was half tearful and
half saturnine.

"You are like your mother, John."

John never knew her.

"When I saw her last you were a child in arms and she was younger than
you are now."

"Where was that, uncle?"

"In her coffin, poor girl."

The Prime Minister shuffled some papers and said, "Well, is there
anything you wish for?"

"Nothing. I've come to thank you for what you've done already."

The Prime Minister made a deprecatory gesture.

"I almost wish you had chosen another career, John. Still, the Church has
its opportunities and its chances, and if I can ever----"

"I am satisfied; more than satisfied," said John. "My choice is based, I
trust, on a firm vocation. God's work is great, sir; the greatest of all
in London. That is why I am so grateful to you. Think of it, sir----"

John was leaning forward in his chair with one arm stretched out.

"Of the five millions of people in this vast city, not one million cross
the threshold of church or chapel. And then remember their condition. A
hundred thousand live in constant want, slowly starving to death, every
day and hour, and a quarter of the old people of London die as paupers.
Isn't it a wonderful scene, sir? If a man is willing to be spiritually
dead to the world--to leave family and friends--to go forth never to
return, as one might go to his execution----"

The Prime Minister listened to the ardent young man who was talking to
him there with his mother's voice, and then said--

"I'm sorry."

"Sorry?"

"I'm afraid I've made a mistake."

John Storm looked puzzled.

"I've sent you to the wrong place, John. When you wrote, I naturally
supposed you were thinking of the Church as a career, and I tried to put
you in the way of it. Do you know anything of your vicar?"

John knew that fame spoke of him as a great preacher--one of the few who
had passed through their Pentecost and come out with the gift of tongues.

"Precisely!" The Prime Minister gave a bitter little laugh. "Bu