back to realities. Another picture rose before him, the sweet
face of the girl he loved, the one whom he was to win by keeping in the
path wherein he now walked. A look of defiance flitted across his
face. No. He would go on. He could never give up now!

But the leaves had rustled again, and now the minister had resumed his
word pictures. This time they were not of the mighty Jehovah, just,
unapproachable, omnipotent; but of the lonely Man of Nazareth standing
by the lakeside and calling the fishermen to Him, and then on to
Calvary when He said, "Father, forgive them, for they know not what
they do."

The elder man's keen eyes saw the tokens of a conflict in the other's
face, and he was too wise to address him directly. His occasional
remarks had the effect of soliloquies, but they plunged Scotty's soul
in the valley of shadows.

He was thinking how all his life he had been compassed about. He knew
now that what he had called hedging circumstances had been God's very
Hand. His grandmother's faithful teachings had guided his careless
boyish feet; his grandfather's falls from the high position he had set
himself were graphic object-lessons to teach the value of
righteousness; Monteith's influence had kept him in the right way, and
now how dared he turn aside of his own will?

But what was the minister reading now? What but the story of a young
man, one so goodly and commendable in person and character that the
Master had regarded him with an especial feeling of comradeship; but
there was one thing he refused to give up, and he turned his back upon
the Saviour of mankind and went away sorrowful, "for his possessions
were very great." And Scotty's possessions were great also--those he
was about to reach out and seize, infinitely beyond the value of gold
and silver, and he wanted to turn away, too, but something held him.

The minister glanced at the young man's face, and knew his heart had
been touched. He closed the Book. "Let us pray," he said, and rising,
knelt by the side of a moss-grown log. But Scotty did not kneel; he
sat erect, staring with desperate eyes into the fire, and striving with
all the force of his will to harden his heart. To his relief the old
man made no remark upon his strange conduct when he arose from his
knees, but at once went to his bed in the shanty. Some subtle instinct
told him the young man would be better alone.

Long after he had retired Scotty walked up and down befor