It was with an anxious heart that Ernest Stapleton went home after the meeting. He was not at all sure that he had not been wrong, and the author of much mischief; although with the usual confidence of youth he had great faith in his own opinions. Still, he thought that Mr. Collinson had approved of him, and if so, there was not much to fear, for though he doubted himself a little, he doubted the minister not at all; so his courage rose as he passed through the gates of his father’s residence. He ran up the steps, whistling as he went; but on the top one he sighed, and a fear which he had known before came back to him. He was afraid that there was something wrong in his home. His father looked dreadfully worried, and although he knew that among his men another strike was impending, yet even that was not sufficient, he thought, to quite account for so much anxiety. And his mother—his beautiful mother, whom he loved so dearly—looked sometimes pale, and as if she had been crying. Ernest wondered what it all meant, and feared that trouble was impending. When he stepped into the hall he heard his uncle’s voice, and that, too, he thought a little strange. Dr. Stapleton had visited them very rarely until quite lately, but now it was no unusual thing for him to be there once or twice in a week. The Doctor came forward to greet him. He was looking wretchedly ill and worn, but he had always a cheery word for his nephew, whom he cordially approved. “Well, Ernest, old boy, how are you? How are the Crusaders going on? Is there much fighting at present?” “Plenty of fighting, uncle, though we do not have a big gun to accompany us. How are you? Have you come to stay a few weeks, or will you run away directly, as you generally do?” “I think my patients consider that I usually stay quite long enough. I must try to get back by to-morrow evening. How many boys do you number now in your regiment? Three hundred? That is splendid. I hope they will all be faithful.” “Certainly something has improved the boys of Granchester,” said Miss Stapleton. “They are not nearly as rude and coarse as they were. Mother and I were remarking it the last time we went through the streets. Although it was evening we did not hear a single boy swear. And that is a thing that ought to be written in red ink among the chronicles of Granchester. “You see, Mat, that these fellows are all capable of being taught and persuaded, only the wrong teachers get hold of them. The best lessons are not to be got in the streets; but it is in the streets that most boys get their lessons. They are a little mistaken as to what manliness is; but that is not their fault. How should they know if they are not taught? They judge by the men whom they see. They seldom have the best types exhibited to them.” “They know something of their fathers’ masters, I suppose?” “Yes; but all their fathers’ masters are not like our father. Many of them do not treat their men properly.”