surety should have been beyond the
danger of vicarious and everlasting death. However, Scott was too much
in earnest, just then, about his own fate, to heed that of his worthy
and departed grandsire.

"I am sorry, mother," he repeated gravely; "but I am afraid it is that,
or nothing. All this summer, perhaps even before, I have been thinking
things over. I'll be glad to preach. Maybe--" his accent was boyish in
its extreme simplicity; "maybe, if I try my best, I'll do somebody a
little good. But," and his face stiffened, as he spoke; "but I'll be
hanged if I am going to stand up in the pulpit and say a whole lot of
things I don't believe and don't want to believe, just because
Grandfather Wheeler and Great-grandfather Wheeler and all that tribe
did believe them."

Across his energy, his growing excitement, Mrs. Brenton's level voice
cut in a little sternly.

"What is it that you don't believe, my son?" she asked him.

Scott rose to his feet, took a turn up the room, a turn down it. Then
he faced her.

"I'm not sure I even know that--yet," he answered. "I've got to find it
out. Honestly, mother," again there came a note of pleading; "isn't it
about as much to the point to find out the things you don't believe as
the things you do? And there must be some truth, somewhere, that's
worth the preaching, no matter how many things you have to throw over,
before you get to it. It's that I'm after now, a truth that is the
truth, that can be proved. Once I get it, I'll stand up and preach it,
and prove it, too, to every man I meet. That's what religion's for.
But, to do it, I must go into a church which gives you a little leeway,
a church which lets you interpret a few things to suit yourself, not
lays down the law about the last little phrase of the meaning you are
allowed to put into them."

Again there came the restless pacing of the room. This time, it lasted
longer. At last, though, he halted by her side, and rested one lean
hand upon her shoulder.

"Mother," he said, and now all boyishness had fallen away from him; "I
am sorry if this is going to hurt you; but I can't help it. Two years
ago, I told you I would study for the ministry. I shall keep my word;
but the way I keep it must be left for me to choose."

There was no mistaking the resonant purpose in his voice. Recognizing
it, his mother yielded to it of necessity. As quietly as possible, she
accepted the choice that he had made, and then she went away to her