rmon. To the wonder of all, Andrew Johnstone
desired it, and everyone felt he must yield a deference to his wishes.
As for John Egerton, he was relieved. Remembering his last interview
with Duncan Polite and how he might have averted this catastrophe had
he been faithful to his duty, he felt he could not bear the ordeal.

The minister's text was a strange one for a funeral sermon, but that,
too, was Andrew Johnstone's choice. "Son of man, I have set thee a
watchman." The old clergyman was the very one for his task. He spent
no time in eulogising the dead; but he told simply and tenderly the
story of Duncan Polite's covenant, how he had striven to keep it,
giving at length his all, even his life, to serve the people of his
Glen.

There was not a person in the congregation who did not take the lesson
to heart. The story of the old man's unselfish interest in the
spiritual life of the place took a firm hold upon the listeners and
roused them to better and nobler aims. But there was one to whom the
sermon was a fiery ordeal. For even Donald, well-nigh crushed with the
weight of his grief and the knowledge of all he had missed, was no more
torn by the old clergyman's words than the young minister who sat
reviewing his past self-satisfied year in Glenoro in the light of
Duncan Polite's hopes.

The May days had come, and Glenoro was all pink and white in a burst of
apple blossoms when Donald next returned from college. On the evening
after his arrival he walked down the village street with mingled
feelings of joy and pain. Jessie was waiting for him at the gate; he
almost fancied he could detect her white dress through the trees even
at this distance, but he had just passed an old house on the hilltop, a
house at which he had always stopped in the past, and now it was silent
and empty. As he turned from behind the elms and came in full view of
the village, he suddenly paused. The minister was just emerging from
Peter McNabb's gate; he turned up the hill and he and Donald came face
to face.

The two young men stood for an instant, and then, with a common
impulse, stretched out their hands. John Egerton grasped the hand of
Duncan Polite's nephew with a pang of regret. If he had done this long
before, what a different turn affairs might have taken.

Donald was the first to speak. "This is very kind of you, Mr.
Egerton," he said with his accustomed frankness. "I have misjudged you
so often----"

"Don't say