“I own that I was indiscreet and wrong in talking after that fashion in presence of the girls. Are you not satisfied with that frank confession?” “I am not satisfied; I cannot be satisfied while I remain in doubt as to whether those careless words did not really express the opinion of my brother. Ever since you have been here on this visit, Augustine, it has seemed to me as if a change had passed over you; you are no longer what you once were. There is not the frank interchange of thought between us that there used to be in former years.” “I am no longer a boy,” replied Augustine, leaning carelessly back in his chair. “When you were a boy,” continued Mr. Aumerle, “you used often to express to me your desire to enter the ministry.” “Oh, that’s all over,” replied Augustine quickly; “my views on many points have changed. I have discovered that there are many paths open to speculative thought besides the dry beaten one which you and all the pious world have been content for generations to tread.” “There is nothing,” murmured Pride, “so hateful to an exalted spirit as travelling in a crowd.” “Is it well,” said Aumerle, “to wander from the narrow path, in which so many have found happiness in life, and peace in death?” “There are stumbling-blocks in that path,” replied Augustine; “difficulties which it would puzzle even a theologian like yourself to remove, and over which the learned and the zealous have wrangled from time immemorial. How can you explain to me this?” and the young man ran over, with rapid eloquence, one after another of the difficult questions which have for ages put human wisdom to fault. “How can you explain all this?” he repeated, at the close of his argument. “These things are beyond the grasp of the human mind,” replied the clergyman; “they are not contrary to reason, but above it.” “Reason is the guide allotted to intellectual man,” said Augustine; “I go as far as she leads me, and no further.”