d thank Principal Trenholme on her knees, if it was only the
conventional thing to do."

"He is a most devoted Christian," added Mrs. Brown, using the religious
terms to which she was accustomed, "and I believe he makes it a matter
of prayer that no young man should leave his college without deepened
religious life. I believe in prayer as a power; don't you, Miss
Rexford?"

"Yes," replied Sophia, tersely. She did not feel at that moment as if
she wanted to discuss the point.

"And then he's so jolly," put in the youngest Miss Brown, who was a
hearty girl. "That's the sort of religion for me, the kind that can
rollick--of course I mean _out of church_," she added naively.

Blue and Red sat shyly upon their chairs and listened to this discourse.
It might have been Greek for all the interest they took in it.

As for Sophia, it could not be said to lack interest for her--it was
very plain, she thought, why Robert Trenholme thought so highly of the
Browns.

There was a youth belonging to this family who was a year or two older
than Blue and Red. His mother, sent for him to come into the room, and
introduced him to them. He was a nice youth, but precocious; he said to
them:

"I suppose you think Chellaston is a very pretty place, but I'll tell
you what our natural beauties lack as yet. It is such a literature as
you have in England, which has done so much to endear the wildflowers
and birds and all natural objects there to the heart of the people. Our
Canadian flora and fauna are at present unsung, and therefore, to a
large extent, unobserved by the people, for I think the chief use of the
poet is to interpret nature to the people--don't you?"

Blue ventured "yes," and Red lisped in confusion, "Do you think so,
really?" but as for any opinion on the subject they had none. Sophia,
fearing that her sisters would be cast aside as hopeless dunces, was
obliged to turn partially from the praise that was being lavished on
Trenholme to make some pithy remark upon the uses of the poet.

Sophia, although half conscious of her own unreasonableness, decided now
that the Browns might go one way and she another; but she was indebted
to this visit for a clue in analysing the impression Trenholme made upon
her. His new friends had called him noble; she knew now that when she
knew him ten years before he had seemed to her a more noble character.

In the next few weeks she observed that in every picnic, every pleasure
party, by lan