," said Mary, much hurt; "you really do
pain me now. What can you mean?"

Charles covered his face with his hands, and at length said: "It's no
good; you can't assist me here; I only pain you. I ought not to have
begun the subject."

There was a silence.

"My dearest Charles," said Mary tenderly, "come, I will bear anything,
and not be annoyed. Anything better than to see you go on in this way.
But really you frighten me."

"Why," he answered, "when a number of people tell me that Oxford is not
my place, not my position, perhaps they are right; perhaps it isn't."

"But is that really all?" she said; "who wants you to lead an Oxford
life? not we."

"No, but Oxford implies taking a degree--taking orders."

"Now, my dear Charles, speak out; don't drop hints; let me know;" and
she sat down with a look of great anxiety.

"Well," he said, making an effort; "yet I don't know where to begin; but
many things have happened to me, in various ways, to show me that I have
not a place, a position, a home, that I am not made for, that I am a
stranger in, the Church of England."

There was a dreadful pause; Mary turned very pale; then, darting at a
conclusion with precipitancy, she said quickly, "You mean to say, you
are going to join the Church of Rome, Charles."

"No," he said, "it is not so. I mean no such thing; I mean just what I
say; I have told you the whole; I have kept nothing back. It is this,
and no more--that I feel out of place."

"Well, then," she said, "you must tell me more; for, to my apprehension,
you mean just what I have said, nothing short of it."

"I can't go through things in order," he said; "but wherever I go,
whomever I talk with, I feel him to be another sort of person from what
I am. I can't convey it to you; you won't understand me; but the words
of the Psalm, 'I am a stranger upon earth,' describe what I always feel.
No one thinks or feels like me. I hear sermons, I talk on religious
subjects with friends, and every one seems to bear witness against me.
And now the College bears its witness, and sends me down."

"Oh, Charles," said Mary, "how changed you are!" and tears came into her
eyes; "you used to be so cheerful, so happy. You took such pleasure in
every one, in everything. We used to laugh and say, 'All Charlie's geese
are swans.' What has come over you?" She paused, and then continued:
"Don't you recollect those lines in the 'Christian Year'? I can't repeat
them; we used to apply the