Gerald was to compete, in his fourteenth year, for a scholarship at some public school. What the school should be was long debated, as Mr. Eversley, who had not been at any public school, discovered some pecuniary, or social, or theological objection to nearly all of them; but at last the rich relation of Mr. Eversley’s first wife, who has been already mentioned, not only recommended St. Anselm’s, his own old school, but generously offered, if Gerald was successful there, to defray the necessary expenses of his education, having unfortunately no son of his own. Mr. Eversley took this offer as a providential leading. He accepted it gratefully. It was decided that Gerald should aspire to become a scholar of St. Anselm’s. But how many doubts arose in Mr. Eversley’s mind, as soon as the decision was made, and kept him awake during long hours of the night! Would Gerald succeed in winning a scholarship? and would the success, if it were given him, afford him happiness--the divine happiness which alone in Mr. Eversley’s eyes was worth possessing? Would he learn extravagant ways, above his proper station in life? Above all, would he lose the simplicity, the uprightness, the pure and cloudless faith of his old days at Kestercham? These were not light questions to Mr. Eversley. He debated them anxiously, prayerfully. Eager as he was for the scholarship, it is but just to say that he would unhesitatingly have cast away the hope or thought of it could he have foreseen that it would create a coldness or severance of heart between the son who was so dear to him and himself. At the time of the examination Mr. Eversley himself took Gerald to St. Anselm’s. The occasion was so special that it seemed to demand a breaking up of Mr. Eversley’s established way of life. They could not get rooms in the little hotel at St. Anselm’s, but were quartered in the village over a saddler’s shop. Gerald had never seen so many boys before, he was bewildered by the sight of them; he had not thought there could be so many boys of his own age in the world. The examination papers frightened him. The examiners, dressed in cap and gown, astonished him. He did his best but the other boys looked so clever and talked so knowingly that he felt sure he should be nowhere.