ive the question a hasty consideration and
then reverse your decision. Do not attempt to decide. Let your choice
be guided by circumstances; they are the safest guide, for they are
not of our own making.

"I do not suppose," he continued, "that I shall ever see you again on
earth, as you proceed with your journey to-morrow; and indeed I think
it will perhaps be as well that this should be our last conversation,
so that nothing else should interfere to blur the impression.

"One last word then." He paused for a moment, and the stillness was
broken only by the faintest stir of odorous wind among the
spice-trees and a waft of distant evening noises.

"You are treading a path, though you do not realize it, which it is
not given to many men to tread. You have had your first intimation of
the goal to-day, and the future will not be wanting in indications of
the same; but, as I have said, you will suddenly, when you least
expect it, step inside the circle, and everything will be changed.

"To you I wish to intrust a future that I can not mould myself, to be
moulded, not for me, but for the great Master of all. You are the
chosen instrument for this. My work lies in another region, which you
will realize on that day when all things are made plain.

"Only remember that your destiny is high and arduous, and that a
single false step may throw you from a precipice that has taken years
to scale once, and that must be scaled again. For you walk among the
clouds, or very near them; you are not defiled by any gross habitual
sin; your heart is pure, and you have known suffering. You are a true
novice.

"In a year, as I have said, I shall claim your answer. And now
farewell for a season. When we next meet we shall have a larger
common ground; we shall be master and pupil no longer.

"You shall see the boy once again, by his wish and my own. He shall
go with you to your house to-night, and travel with you the first
stage to-morrow. I have arranged for his return."

He then conducted Arthur into the house, where he bade adieu to the
mistress and to the younger son; the elder, his charge that was to
be, meeting him as he came out, and accompanying him home. The boy
had formed a great attachment to him, and the idea of their future
relations sent a strange and unwonted glow into Arthur's mind, so
that he parted from him on the next day, "with wonder in his heart,"
and something very like an ache too.

This last episode will appear