th Saint Peter's Parish. The sudden reversal of his
collar buttons was, in a sense, typical of the sudden reversal of all
his habits of thought and life. His grip had been loosening, during
many previous months; the sudden change in his responsibilities
appeared to have relaxed it utterly.

In the broadest sense, Brenton's old work, like his new, had been
teaching. Now, however, the enthusiasm of his gospel was possessing him
completely, a gospel, nowadays, solely of the science which, heretofore,
threading through and through the fabric of his sermons, had of
necessity been juggled to the likeness of the Book of Revelation. Now
that he could set it forth in all its nakedness, it seemed to Brenton
more than ever like the Book of Revelation. Day after day, his
enthusiasm for his theme increased its pace, threw off the bridle of
hard, concrete fact, ran to the speculative limits of its course, and
then ran past them. By the first of May, Brenton's lectures had made
themselves one of the features of the college world; but, by the same
token, they had ceased to be lectures upon chemistry, and had become
harangues upon every phase of the allied sciences, harangues which ran
through the entire gamut of abstract investigation, and came to rest at
last upon the pair of finite questions: _Whence?_ and _Whither?_

And, by the first of May, the student world was all agog, seeking to
answer those questions flatly and quite off-hand, instead of waiting
for experience of life to give the answer for them. Brenton, meantime,
was becoming ten times the force he had been at Saint Peter's; the only
trouble lay in the fact that now his force was, not formative, but
deformative.

"He's making himself a reputation, fast enough," Dolph Dennison said,
one day. "How much good he is accomplishing, though, is another
question."

To Dolph's surprise, Olive opposed him.

"Isn't there always good in simple, downright sincerity?" she queried.

"Not a bit of it," Dolph assured her bluntly, for a certain talk
between them, weeks before, a talk disastrous to the best of Dolph's
plans for life, had in no sense put an end to their good friendship.
"Sincerity itself is nothing. It's the thing one gets sincere about."
Then, without waiting for an answer, "What a woman you are, Olive!" he
said.

"Because I stand up for Mr. Brenton?"

"Because, down in your secret heart, you rather admire him for his
confounded weaknesses." Dolph spoke with increasi