s
to be a priest; and of the life that he will lead, and of the death that
he may die!... And it is I ... I ... who will have sent him to it.
Mother!..."

Mrs. Manners was bethinking herself of a cordial just then, and how she
knew old Ann would be coming presently, and was listening with but half
an ear.

"It's not you, my dear," she said, patting the head beneath her hands.
(The wrap was fallen off, and the maid's long hair was all over her
shoulders.) "And now--"

"But our Lord will take care of him, will He not? And not suffer--"

Mrs. Manners fell to patting her head again.

"And who brought the message?" she asked.

* * * * *

Mrs. Manners was one of those experienced persons who are fully
persuaded that youth is a disease that must be borne with patiently.
Time, indeed, will cure it; yet until the cure is complete, elders must
bear it as well as they can and not seem to pay too much attention to
it. A rigorous and prudent diet; long hours of sleep, plenty of
occupation--these are the remedies for the fever. So, while Marjorie
first began to read the lad's letter, and then, breaking down
altogether, thrust it into her mother's hand, Mrs. Manners was searching
her memory as to whether any imprudence the day before, in food or
behaviour, could be the cause of this crisis. Love between boys and
girls was common enough; she herself twenty years ago had suffered from
the sickness when young John had come wooing her; yet a love that could
thrust from it that which it loved, was beyond her altogether. Either
Marjorie loved the lad, or she did not, and if she loved him, why did
she pray that he might be a priest? That was foolishness; since
priesthood was a bar to marriage. She began to conclude that Marjorie
did not love him; it had been but a romantic fancy; and she was
encouraged by the thought.

"Madge," she began, when she had read through the confused line or two,
in the half-boyish, half-clerkly hand of Robin, scribbled and dispatched
by the hands of Dick scarcely two hours ago. "Madge--"

She was about to say something sensible when the maid interrupted her
again.

"And it is I who have brought it all on him!" she wailed. "If it had not
been for me--"

Her mother laid a firm hand on her daughter's mouth. It was not often
that she felt the superior of the two; yet here was a time, plain
enough, when maturity and experience must take the reins.

"Madge," she said, "it