If you could have seen him pray, you would never think, as so many do, that praying is a gloomy business. His face was lit up, his eyes bright, his whole body spoke of peace and courage and joy. He kept thinking so much about heaven that he seemed to live there in advance. Everybody knows how, when the school year is nearly over and vacations are at hand, there is a joyful atmosphere about the days. Lessons do not seem so hard, though they really are just the same old lessons. Classes seem to have more life and spirit in them. Boys are in better temper. Every detail of work and play is colored by expectation, as if the relief of vacation were already foretasted. Stanislaus looked forward just that way to the Great Vacation, to going Home forever. He knew that even the longest life. ends soon, that all its difficulties and troubles pass away and eternity begins; and he felt so light-hearted looking ahead to that eternity that nothing happening here could sadden him - except sin, and he kept away from that. Paul and his boisterous fellows thought that Paul's younger brother was a queer chap. But they liked him, just the same, because he was always pleasant and smiling. He never said a word to them about their conduct. But when they talked to him, he naturally spoke of the things he was always thinking about. And they did not like that. Such talk tended to stir up their consciences, even to frighten them. And they did not want their con-sciences stirred up. You can often see that. You may have noticed in yourself that, if you are not living as you ought to live, any word about God or death or heaven or our Blessed Lady irritates you, makes you feel horribly uncomfortable. And so Stanislaus became a puzzle to them, because they would not see. And little by little they left him alone, or only spoke to him to tease him or make fun of him. CHAPTER VII THE TEST OF COURAGE Paul was the worst at this teasing; nor did it stop at mere teasing. He was not a really bad fellow, but he was selfish, set upon having his own will in everything, and had a very quick and fierce temper. Stanislaus' quiet refusal to join in the noisy revels of himself and his companions, his unaffected piety, his long hours of prayer, were things he could not understand. They seemed a sort of standing rebuke to him, and they constantly nettled him. Of course he sought reasons to justify himself, as we all do when we are in the wrong. When they were alone, he and Bilinski fell to scolding Stanislaus. "You shame us!" Paul would cry. "You do not act like a nobleman, but like some boorish peasant." Then Stanislaus would be troubled. He knew he was in the right. He simply could not stand the free ways and freer speech of Paul and his companions. But how could he justify himself? How could he defend his own position without at least seeming to attack his brother's? And that last he would never do. S6metimes he tried to smooth matters over by saying: