e king's son may rebel from deferred expectation; the priest's
son can hardly conspire against his father's pulpit. In the minister's
family the line between the world and the faith is a wavering one;
religion becomes a matter of course, and yet is without the mystery of
religion as elsewhere, so that wife and sons regard ecclesiastical
ambition as meritorious, whether the heart be in it piously or
profanely. Calvin Van de Lear was in the church fold of his own accord,
and his father could no more read that son's heart than any other
member's. Indeed, the good old man was especially obtuse in the son's
case, from his partiality, and thus grew up together on the same root
the flower of piety and hypocrisy, the tree and the sucker.

"Calvin," replied Agnes, "I do not object to your necessary visits here.
Your father is very dear to me."

"But can't I return to the subject we last talked of?" asked the young
man, shrewdly.

"No. That is positively forbidden."

"Agnes," continued Calvin, "you must know I love you!"

Agnes sank to her seat again with a look of resignation.

"Calvin," she said, "this is not the time. I am not the person for such
remarks. I have just risen from my knees; my eyes are not in this
world."

"You will be turning nun if this continues."

"I am in God's hands," said Agnes. "Yet the hour is dark with me."

"Agnes, let me lift some of your burden upon myself. You don't hate me?"

"No. I wish you every happiness, Calvin."

"Is there nothing you long for--nothing earthly and within the compass
of possibility?"

"Yes, yes!" Agnes arose and walked across the floor almost
unconsciously, with the palms of her hands held high together above her
head. As she walked to and fro the theological student perceived a
change so extraordinary in her appearance since his last visit that he
measured her in his cool, worldly gaze as a butcher would compute the
weight of a cow on chance reckoning.

"What is it, dear Agnes?"

He spoke with a softness of tone little in keeping with his unfeeling,
vigilant face.

"Oh, give me love! Now, if ever, it is love! Love only, that can lift me
up and cleanse my soul!"

"Love lies everywhere around you," said the young man. "You trample it
under your feet. My heart--many hearts--have felt the cruel treatment.
Agnes, _you_ must love also."

"I try to do so," she exclaimed, "but it is not the perfect love that
casteth out fear! God knows I wish it was."

Her eyes