t third and the trio rendered some
gospel hymns very musically.

When they had finished Wee Andra begged so hard for a song that the
visitor could not well refuse and, taking Janet's place at the organ,
he played and sang "Sailing" in splendid style. Jimmie Bailey, who was
always threatening to run away on a Lake Huron boat, was enchanted and
called for more, but something in the elder's face warned the young
minister that he had sung enough. He went back to his uncomfortable
seat on the sofa and strove to carry on a conversation, but without
success.

At length, despairing of ever making friends with this strange family,
he made up his mind to depart. He asked for a Bible and Mrs. Johnstone
handed him a ponderous volume, bound in gilt-edged leather, which she
took, with deep reverence and some pride, from beneath the
coffin-plate. Old Andrew drew a breath of relief. Now at last he
would see if this young man were really worthy of his high calling and
the name he bore; now surely he would speak and show that his mind was
set on higher things. Likely he would say something that would set Wee
Andra thinking and put some solemn truths in his empty head.

But John Egerton's one thought was to get away as quickly as possible.
He read a very short psalm, in a spiritless voice, and they all knelt
for a moment while he led in prayer. He took a hurried farewell of the
family; the elder scarcely spoke and Mrs. Johnstone regarded him with a
puzzled expression.

He walked homeward in the soft summer dusk, down the great wide
staircase, which grew a deeper purple towards the bottom, his heart
very heavy. He had tried so hard to do his best, but there was
something sadly wrong, he could not quite understand what.

He was beginning to fear that Mrs. McNabb's warning that "Glenoro
church was full of old cranks" was only too true.

He was passing slowly down the sloping, faintly pink road, absorbed in
his unhappy reflections when, glancing up as he neared the edge of the
valley, he noticed an old man standing at the gate of a little log
shanty. The young minister remembered shaking hands with him at
church--a quiet old fellow with a handsome, refined face. He had
opened his gate and stood as though waiting, looking so kind, so
sympathetic and so altogether different from old Andrew Johnstone that
the young man felt drawn towards him. He paused involuntarily. "Good
evening," he said pleasantly, "Mr.--Polite, I think?"