‘Well, what do your correspondents say?’ observed Mr. Eversley, when Gerald put the letters down. ‘Oh! nothing,’ answered Gerald. In old days he would have handed the letters to his father. Mr. Eversley made a movement as if to reach out his hand for them. But Gerald put them into his pocket. He seemed not to notice the movement of his father’s hand. It was a slight thing, yet Mr. Eversley felt it. He did not want to read the letters, but it was a pain to him that Gerald should put them away. Gerald had never done so before. Mr. Eversley was making a mistake. It did not occur to him that the progress of life from childhood to manhood changes imperceptibly the relation of parents to their children. How many a father has forgotten, in the very hour when it is all important to remember, the truth that his son cannot be a ‘boy eternal’! Mr. Eversley forgot it, and, alas! paid the penalty of forgetting it. One afternoon in the same week Gerald and his father took a walk across the fields to visit a sick woman on the Green. Mr. Eversley, as they walked, put a good many questions respecting the past term at St. Anselm’s, and Gerald answered them, but he did not volunteer much information. The poor woman to whose cottage they went was so ill that Mr. Eversley left Gerald outside, while he entered it to administer the consolations of Christianity. Gerald occupied himself in cutting off with his stick such few withered thistle-heads as were still left in the hedgerow. When Mr. Eversley came out of the cottage, it was evident from the tears standing in his eyes that he had been deeply touched by the spectacle of suffering. The woman was dying (he said) of cancer; she was in terrible agony, but her resignation to the Divine Will was complete. ‘O my dear Gerald,’ he added, ‘what power is there in all the philosophical systems of the world to give a dying man or woman the peace which that poor woman possesses, relying as she does upon the full atonement made for her sins by the blood of the Saviour?’ Gerald made no reply. After a slight pause Mr. Eversley continued. ‘Yes, Gerald, and when you are a clergyman it will be your blessed privilege to stand by many such deathbeds as hers.’ ‘Yes, if I ever am a clergyman,’ answered Gerald in a low tone. Mr. Eversley looked at him. It was the first doubt that had been cast upon his son’s future. They walked to the vicarage in silence, except for some casual remark which Gerald made about the likelihood of a frost. Gerald was very kind in his home, playing with the children and helping to prepare the decorations for Christmas.