But all that was good and manly in the young fellow's nature rose up against the plan. In the first place, he instinctively felt that his mother and sisters' views on nearly all subjects would be continually at variance with his own, since they were coming to look at life from such totally different standpoints. He also believed that he would be an ever-present burden and source of mortification to them. As a child and a boy he had been their idol. They had looked forward to the time when he, with irreproachable manners and reputation, would become their escort in the exclusive circles in which they were entitled to move. Now he was and would continue to be the insuperable bar to those circles; and by their sighs and manner he would be continually reminded of this fact. Fallen idols are a perpetual offence to their former worshippers, as they ever remind of the downfall of towering hopes. With all his faults, Haldane had too much spirit to go through life as one who must be tolerated, endured, kept in the background, and concerning whom no questions must be asked. He did think the matter over long and carefully, and concluded that even for his mother and sisters' sake it would be best that they should live apart. If he could thoroughly retrieve his character where he had lost it, they would be reconciled to him; if he could not, he would be less of a burden and a mortification absent than present. When he considered his own feelings, the thought of skulking and hiding through life made his cheek tingle with shame and disgust. Conscience sided with his inclination to go back to his old, hard fight at Hillaton; and it also appeared to him that he could there better maintain a Christian life, in spite of all the odds against him, than by taking the enervating course marked out by his mother. He also remembered, with a faint thrill of hope, that whatever recognition he could get at Hillaton as a changed, a better man, it would be based on the rock of truth. He therefore concluded to go back as he had intended, and with the decision came his former, happy, mystical feeling, welling up in his heart like the sweet refreshing waters of a spring, the consciousness of which filled his heart with courage and confidence as to the future. "Surely," he exclaimed, "I am a changed, a converted man. These strange, sweet emotions, this unspeakable gladness of heart in the midst of so much that is painful and distracting, prove that I am. I have not taken this journey in vain." Haldane met only his sisters at dinner, for the scene of the morning had prostrated his mother with a nervous headache. In spite of his efforts, it was a constrained and dismal affair, and all were glad when it was over.