As for the society at Wodensbourne, it was at the present moment of the most limited description. Colin, who was inexperienced, roused up out of his dullness a little when he heard that two of the canons of Earie were coming to dinner one evening. The innocent Scotch lad woke himself up, with a little curiosity about the clerical dignitaries, of whom he knew nothing, and a good deal of anxiety to comport himself as became the representative of a Scotch University, about whom he did not doubt the visitors would be a little curious. It struck Colin with the oddest surprise and disappointment, to find that the canons of Earie were perfectly indifferent about the Scotch student. The curate of the parish, indeed, who was also dining at Wodensbourne that day, was wonderfully civil to the new tutor. He told him that he understood the Scotch mountains were very near as fine as Switzerland, and that he hoped to see them some day, though the curious prejudices about Sunday and the whisky-drinking must come very much in the way of closer intercourse; at which speech Colin’s indignation and amusement would have been wonderful to see, had any one been there who cared to notice how the lad was looking. On the Sundays, Colin and his pupil went along the level ways to the quaint old mossy church, to which this same curate was devoting all his time and thoughts by way of restoration. The Scotch youth had never seen anything at once so homely and so noble as this little church in the fen-country. He thought it nothing less than a poem in stone, a pathetic old psalm of human life and death, joining in for ever and ever, with the tenderest, sad responses, in the worship of heaven. Never anywhere had he felt so clearly how the dead were waiting for the great Easter to come, nor seen Christianity standing so plainly between the beginning and the end; but when Colin, with his Scotch ideas, heard the curious little sermons to which his curate gave utterance under that roof, all consecrated and holy with the sorrows and hopes of ages, it made the strangest anti-climax in the youth’s thoughts. He laughed to himself when he came out, not because he was disposed to laughter, but because it was the only alternative he had; and Sir Thomas, who had a glimmering perception that this must be something new to his inexperienced guest, gave a doubtful sort of smile, not knowing how to take Colin’s strange looks. “You don’t believe in saints’ days, and such like, in Scotland?” said the perplexed baronet; “and of course the sermon does not count for so much with us.” “No, it does not count for much,” said Colin; and they did not enter further into the subject.