of Christ, grown pitiless in final time--Christ standing immutable
amid His white million of youths....

And the worthlessness and the abjectness of earthly life struck him with
awful and all-convincing power, and this vision of the worthlessness of
existence was clearer than any previous vision. He paused. There was but
one conclusion ... it looked down upon him like a star--he would become a
priest. All darkness, all madness, all fear faded, and with sure and
certain breath he breathed happiness; the sense of consecration nestled
in its heart, and its light shone upon his face.

There was nothing in the past, but there is the sweetness of meditation
in the present, and in the future there is God. Like a fountain flowing
amid a summer of leaves and song, the sweet hours came with quiet and
melodious murmur. In the great arm-chair of his ancestors he sits thin
and tall. Thin and tall. The great flames decorate the darkness, and the
twilight sheds upon the rose curtains, walking birds and falling petals.
But his thoughts are dreaming through long aisle and solemn arch, clouds
of incense and painted panes.... The palms rise in great curls like the
sky; and amid the opulence of gold vestments, the whiteness of the
choir, the Latin terminations and the long abstinences, the holy oil
comes like a kiss that never dies ... and in full glory of symbol and
chant, the very savour of God descends upon him ... and then he awakes,
surprised to find such dreams out of sleep.

His resolve did not alter; he longed for health because it would bring
the realisation of his desire, and time appeared to him cruelly long.
Nor could he think of the pain he inflicted on his mother, so centred
was he in this thought; he was blind to her sorrowing face, he was deaf
to her entreaty; he could neither feel nor see beyond the immediate
object he had in mind, and he spoke to her in despair of the length of
months that separated him from consecration; he speculated on the
possibility of expediting that happy day by a dispensation from the
Pope. The moment he could obtain permission from the doctor he ordered
his trunks to be packed, and when he bid Mrs Norton and Kitty Hare
good-bye, he exacted a promise from the former to be present at Stanton
College on Palm Sunday. He wished her to be present when he embraced
Holy Orders.

CHAPTER IV.

Every morning Mrs Norton flung her black shawl over her shoulders,
rattled her keys, and scolded the