he list was read out, Hart's name was not even amongst
the successful candidates. The Belfast students were thoroughly angry.
They felt the honour of the College was at stake; he had not done his
share in upholding it, and they did not hesitate to tell him so. Hart
listened to their reproaches and answered never a word, but quietly
went on, in the week that intervened between the pass examination and
the final, with his preparations for the latter. The ability to do so
showed courage and character--and he hath both in an unusual degree.

The very night before the "final" his reward came. Some one hurried
up his stairs and burst into his little sitting-room. It was the
Professor--the famous George Lillie Craik--who had set the papers for
the Literature class.

"I come to apologize to you for a mistake," he said very kindly, "and
to explain why you have not been chosen for re-examination. The truth
is you answered so well at the 'pass' that I wrote your name on the
first sheet, and nobody else's--as nobody came near you. Unfortunately
this page, almost blank, was mislaid, and that is how it happened that
you, who should have been chosen before all the rest, were overlooked.
Now I want to ask you to come up for re-examination to-morrow, and, at
the same time, wish you the best of luck."

Robert Hart went--and won. He received a gold medal and L15 for this
subject, a gold medal and L15 also for Logic and Metaphysics, and
sufficient honour and glory besides to turn a less well-balanced head.

Meanwhile the choice of a future career naturally filled the young
man's thoughts. First he seriously debated whether he should become
a doctor, but gave up the idea when he found he came home from every
operation imagining himself a sufferer from the disease he had just
seen treated. Next there was some talk of putting him into a lawyer's
office--talk which came to nothing; and finally a lecture he heard on
China at seventeen almost decided him to become a missionary to the
heathen, but he soon abandoned this plan like the others.

After taking his B.A., he went instead to spend a post-graduate year
at Belfast, and read for a Master's degree--this in spite of the fact
that he was worn out with the strain of eighteen hours' work a day,
and used to see authors creeping in through the keyhole and wake in
the night to find illuminated letters dancing a witches' dance around
his bed.

Then, just at the critical moment of his life--in