me Lee's Dictionary of Ecclesiastical Terms?" added Michael in a voice
that contained no accent of hope.

"I'll lend you anything you like, my dear boy," said the priest, "on one
condition."

"What's that?"

"Why, that you'll admit life holds a few grains of consolation."

"But it doesn't," Michael declared.

"Wait a bit, I haven't finished. I was going to say--when I tell you
that we are going to keep the Assumption this August."

Michael's eyes glittered for a moment with triumph.

"By Jove, how decent." Then they grew dull again. "And I shan't be here.
The rotten thing is, too, that my mater wants to go abroad. Only she
says she couldn't leave me alone. But of course she could really."

"Why not stay with a friend--the voluble Chator, for instance, or
Martindale, that Solomon of schoolboys, or Rigg who in Medicean days
would have been already a cardinal, so admirably does he incline to all
parties?"

"I can't ask myself," said Michael. "Their people would think it rum.
Besides, Chator's governor has gout, and I wouldn't care to be six weeks
with the other two. Oh, I do hate not being grown up."

"What about your friend Alan Merivale? I thought him a very charming
youth and refreshingly unpietistic."

"He doesn't know the difference between a chasuble and a black gown,"
said Michael.

"Which seems to me not to matter very much ultimately," put in Mr.
Viner.

"No, of course it doesn't. But if one is keen on something and somebody
else isn't, it isn't much fun," Michael explained. "Besides, he can't
make me out nowadays."

"Surely the incomprehensible is one of the chief charms of faith and
friendship."

"And anyway he's going abroad to Switzerland--and I couldn't possibly
fish for an invitation. It is rotten. Everything's always the same."

"Except in the Church of England. There you have an almost blatant
variety," suggested the priest.

"You never will be serious when I want you to be," grumbled Michael.

"Oh, yes I will, and to prove it," said Mr. Viner, "I'm going to make a
suggestion of unparagoned earnestness."

"What?"

"Now just let me diagnose your mental condition. You are sick of
everything--Thucydides, cabbage, cricket, school, schoolfellows,
certificates and life."

"Well, you needn't rag me about it," Michael interrupted.

"In the Middle Ages gentlemen in your psychical perplexity betook
themselves either to the Crusades or entered a monastery. Now, why
shouldn't you for the