"What has come to you, dear Charles?" she said, stopping and looking at him; then, gently removing his hair and smoothing his forehead, she said, "you are so sad to-day." "Dearest Mary," he made answer, "nothing's the matter, indeed. I think it is Mr. Malcolm who has put me out. It's so stupid to talk of the prospects of a boy like me. Don't look so, I mean nothing; only it annoys me." Mary smiled. "What I mean is," continued Charles, "that we can rely on nothing here, and are fools if we build on the future." "We can rely on each other," she repeated. "Ah, dear Mary, don't say so; it frightens me." She looked round at him surprised, and almost frightened herself. "Dearest," he continued, "I mean nothing; only everything is so uncertain here below." "We are sure of each other, Charles." "Yes, Mary," and he kissed her affectionately, "it is true, most true;" then he added, "all I meant was that it seems presumptuous to say so. David and Jonathan were parted; St. Paul and St. Barnabas." Tears stood in Mary's eyes. "Oh, what an ass I am," he said, "for thus teasing you about nothing; no, I only mean that there is One _only_ who cannot die, who never changes, only One. It can't be wrong to remember this. Do you recollect Cowper's beautiful lines? I know them without having learned them--they struck me so much the first time I read them;" and he repeated them:-- Thou art the source and centre of all minds, Their only point of rest, Eternal Word. From Thee departing, they are lost, and rove At random, without honour, hope, or peace. From Thee is all that soothes the life of man, His high endeavour and his glad success, His strength to suffer and his will to serve. But oh, Thou Sovereign Giver of all good, Thou art of all Thy gifts Thyself the crown; Give what Thou canst, without Thee we are poor, And with Thee rich, take what Thou wilt away. CHAPTER XIII. October came at length, and with it Charles's thoughts were turned again to Oxford. One or two weeks passed by; then a few days; and it was time to be packing. His father parted with him with even greater emotion than when he first went to school. He would himself drive him in the phaeton to the neighbouring town, from which the omnibus ran to the railroad, though he had the gout flying about him; and when the moment for parting came he could not get himself to give up his hand, as if he had something to say which he could not recollect or master.