not.'

'You should twist his tail,' said Jack.

'That seems to be the difficulty, Jack,' said his mother, 'to get hold
of his tale.'

'Oh, mother,' groaned Jack; 'you never did such a thing before! How
could you? Is it this baleful Western influence?'

'I shall reform, Jack,' she replied brightly.

'But, seriously, Graeme,' I remonstrated, 'you ought to tell your people
of your life--that free, glorious life in the mountains.'

'Free! Glorious! To some men, perhaps!' said Graeme, and then fell into
silence.

But I saw Graeme as a new man the night he talked theology with his
father. The old minister was a splendid Calvinist, of heroic type, and
as he discoursed of God's sovereignty and election, his face glowed and
his voice rang out.

Graeme listened intently, now and then putting in a question, as one
would a keen knife-thrust into a foe. But the old man knew his ground,
and moved easily among his ideas, demolishing the enemy as he appeared,
with jaunty grace. In the full flow of his triumphant argument, Graeme
turned to him with sudden seriousness.

'Look here, father! I was born a Calvinist, and I can't see how any one
with a level head can hold anything else, than that the Almighty has
some idea as to how He wants to run His universe, and He means to carry
out His idea, and is carrying it out; but what would you do in a case
like this?' Then he told him the story of poor Billy Breen, his fight
and his defeat.

'Would you preach election to that chap?'

The mother's eyes were shining with tears.

The old gentleman blew his nose like a trumpet, and then said gravely--

'No, my boy, you don't feed babes with meat. But what came to him?'

Then Graeme asked me to finish the tale. After I had finished the
story of Billy's final triumph and of Craig's part in it, they sat long
silent, till the minister, clearing his throat hard and blowing his nose
more like a trumpet than ever, said with great emphasis--

'Thank God for such a man in such a place! I wish there were more of us
like him.'

'I should like to see you out there, sir,' said Graeme admiringly;
'you'd get them, but you wouldn't have time for election.'

'Yes, yes!' said his father warmly; 'I should love to have a chance
just to preach election to these poor lads. Would I were twenty years
younger!'

'It is worth a man's life,' said Graeme earnestly. His younger brother
turned his face eagerly toward the mother. For answer she slipped her