f the trio of learned professions, without, I see, prepossessing
you in favour of the two I have mentioned. You are averse to the law,
and do not care about doctoring; well then, there's the church, last
though by no means least--what say you to following my footsteps in that
sacred calling, as your brother Tom purposes doing when he leaves Oxford
after taking his degree?"

I did not say anything, but father appeared to guess my thoughts.

"Too many of the family in orders already--eh? True; still, recollect
there is room enough and work enough, God knows, amid all the sin and
suffering there is in the world, for you also to devote your life to the
same good cause in which, my son, I, your father, and your brother have
already enlisted, and you may, I trust, yet prove yourself a doughtier
soldier of the cross than either of us. What say you, Allan, I repeat,
to being a clergyman--the noblest profession under the sun?"

"No, father dear," I at length answered on his pausing for my reply,
looking up into his kind thoughtful gray eyes, that were fixed on my
face with a sort of wistful expression in them; and which always seemed
to read my inmost mind, and rebuke me with their consciousness, if at
any time I hesitated to tell the truth for a moment, in fear of
punishment, when, as frequently happened, I chanced to be brought before
him for judgment, charged with some boyish escapade or youthful folly.
"I don't think I should ever be good enough to be a clergyman like you,
father, however hard I might try; while, though I know I am a bad boy
very often, and do lots of things that I'm sorry for afterwards, I don't
believe I could ever be bad enough to make a good lawyer, if all the
stories are true that they tell in the village about Mr Sharpe, the
attorney at Westham."

The corners of father's mouth twitched as if he wanted to smile, but did
not think it right to do so.

"You are shrewd in your opinions, Allan," he said; "but dogmatic and
paradoxical in one breath, besides being too censorious in your sweeping
analysis of character. I should like you to show more charity in your
estimate of others. Your diffidence in respect of entering the church I
can fully sympathise with, having felt the same scruples myself, and
being conscious even now, after many years, of falling short of the high
ideal I had originally, and have still, of one who would follow the
Master; but, in your wholesale condemnation of the law and la