eally believed. Tom on his part gratefully
accepted the change in his father's manner, and took all means of
showing his gratitude by consulting and talking freely to him on
such subjects as they could agree upon, which were numerous,
keeping in the back-ground the questions which had provoked
painful discussions between them. By degrees these even could be
tenderly approached; and, now that they were approached in a
different spirit, the honest beliefs of the father and son no
longer looked so monstrous to one another, the hard and sharp
outlines began to wear off, and the views of each of them to be
modified. Thus, bit by bit, by a slow but sure process, a better
understanding than ever was re-established between them.

This beginning of a better state of things in his relations with
his father consoled Tom for many other matters that seemed to go
wrong with him, and was a constant bit of bright sky to turn to
when the rest of his horizon looked dark and dreary, as it did
often enough.

For it proved a very trying year to him, this his third and last
year at the University; a year full of large dreams and small
performances, of unfulfilled hopes and struggles to set himself
right, ending ever more surely in failure and disappointment. The
common pursuits of the place had lost their freshness, and with
it much of their charm. He was beginning to feel himself in a
cage, and to beat against the bars of it.

Often, in spite of all his natural hopefulness, his heart seemed
to sicken and turn cold, without any apparent reason; his old
pursuits palled on him, and he scarcely cared to turn to new
ones. What was it that made life so blank to him at these times?
How was it that he could not keep the spirit within him alive and
warm?

It was easier to ask such questions than to get an answer. Was it
not this place he was living in and the ways of it? No, for the
place and its ways were the same as ever, and his own way of life
in it better than ever before. Was it the want of sight or
tidings of Mary? Sometimes he thought so, and then cast the
thought away as treason. His love for her was ever sinking deeper
into him, and raising and purifying him. Light and strength and
life came from that source; craven weariness and coldness of
heart, come from whence they might, were not from that quarter.
But precious as his love was to him, and deeply as it affected
his whole life, he felt that there must be something beyond
it--th