Anselm’s, and of other schools too, as pre-eminently suited to the last Sunday of the school year, with its touching prayer for those who are leaving, and its equally touching prayer, no less needed, for those who will come back: Let Thy father-hand be shielding All who here shall meet no more; May their seed-time past be yielding Year by year a richer store; Those returning Make more faithful than before. The sermon was over. The tender notes of the voluntary, ‘O rest in the Lord,’ sounded on the organ as the boys slowly and reverently left the chapel. O sacred beloved spot on earth--the chapel of a great school! It is there, if anywhere in the world, that worship is realised in its purity, far away from the discords of contending creeds--there, if anywhere, that the angels meet us, and we feel in our souls the benediction of the Eternal. But Gerald Eversley was as one who saw and heard not. The service being over, there remained a few minutes before the ringing of the lock-up bell would call the boys to their houses. ‘Let’s go up to the churchyard,’ said Gerald to Harry Venniker, who had joined him just outside the chapel. They walked up the hill, talking of Dr. Pearson’s sermon. ‘By Jove!’ said Harry, ‘how well the doctor preached to-night! There’s nobody like him. He seems to know what fellows are thinking.’ ‘Yes,’ said Gerald, ‘but it’s hard to do what he says.’ ‘What’s hard?’ asked Harry. ‘Why, you see, a person may be able to act as he likes, but he can’t believe as he likes,’ said Gerald. ‘I don’t see that,’ answered Harry. ‘I know I find it a great deal harder to keep straight, though it’s plain enough what one ought to do.’ ‘That’s not quite what I meant,’ was Gerald’s reply. They had reached the churchyard by this time. They were standing under its elms, gazing out over the wold. There was a deep and almost awful stillness in the air. Only the rooks were cawing overhead. ‘Somehow,’ said Gerald, after a pause, ‘this always seems to me such a sad view.’ ‘Nonsense!’ answered Harry; ‘that’s only because you are in a sad frame of mind just now.’ ‘I think,’ said Gerald, not taking notice of his objection, ‘it’s because it’s all so level--so unbroken; there is no hill and dale, and there are no houses after you get clear of St. Anselm’s.... It’s very beautiful.’ Harry Venniker replied, ‘I rather wish now I had come here oftener. I knew it was fine, but I didn’t think much about it. I suppose you have been here very often, Gerald.’ ‘Nearly every Sunday, I think,’ said Gerald. His companion was going to make some remark, when he checked himself and said, ‘There’s the bell. We must go back to the house. Let’s go by the road.’