hen--Forgive me, if I have no right to ask the question. But one
generally keeps on with a thing like that." Olive was painfully aware
that her curiosity, however she wrapped it up in apologies, was most
unjustifiable.

Scott Brenton, however, did not appear to find it so. Too simple-minded
and downright to obtrude his personal history, he also was too
simple-minded to conceal it.

"I should have kept on with it, at any cost," he answered; "only for
the sake of my mother. She was a widow without much money; she was
giving all she had to educate me, and her heart was set on--something
else."

If Olive noted the little pause, she had at least the super-feminine
tact to ignore it.

"Your priesthood?"

He nodded slowly.

"After a fashion,--yes."

This time, the pause seemed to her entirely natural.

"She must be very happy now," she answered. "Saint Peter's is a dear
old church, mellow enough in its traditions to make up for its
hopelessly new architecture; and I am sure you'll love this sleepy
town."

But it was plain to her that Brenton, quite oblivious to her words, was
pursuing his own train of thought. Out of it he spoke.

"My mother died, two years ago, Miss Keltridge."

Her reply came promptly.

"How glad you must be that she lived to know that her wishes had been
carried out!"

This time, the pause was a good deal longer. Without Olive's in the
least suspecting it, the invincible honour of the man before her was
struggling with his reticence. Should he absorb a praise to which he
had no right; or should he thrust his confidence upon her at this early
stage of their acquaintance? Honour won out.

"Only in part," he said a little sadly. "Really, Miss Keltridge,
there's no especial reason I should bore you with all this, except that
I don't like to be caught, sailing under false colours. I wanted to be
a chemist of some sort or other, something experimental and
theoretical, if I could; and they told me that I could. Sometimes I
wish they hadn't. It would have simplified things a good deal, if I
never had found it out. And my mother, all the time, had been denying
herself in order to prepare me to preach the bluest sort of Calvinism.
I found that it was going to break her heart, if I gave up the plan, so
I gave up the chemistry, instead, and took the preaching.
Unfortunately, though, in the meantime, the chemistry--and some other
things--had made me also give up the Calvinism. And so, in the end of