"Either the book or the surrender. My boy"—and in his voice there echoed the aspiration and the despair of the true scholar who abhors imperfection and incompleteness in a world where nothing is either perfect or complete, "it is different with you. I borrowed you, so to say, for the time. Without you I must have failed; but this was never your work. For myself, I have been humble and learnt my lesson; but, please God, you shall be my Solomon and be granted a temple to build." Taffy had lost his shyness now. He laid a hand on his father's sleeve. "We will go on, then." "Yes, we will go on." "And Jacky? Where has he been? I haven't seen him since the Squire died." Mr. Raymond searched in his coat-pocket and handed over a crumpled letter. It ran:— "DEAR FRIEND.—This is to say that you will not see me no more. The dear Lord tells me I have made a cauch of it. He don't say how, all He says is go and do better somewheres else. "Seems to me a terrable thing to think _Religion_ can be bad for anny man. It have done me such powars of good. The late Moyle esq he was like a dirty pan all the milk turned sour no mattar what. Dr friend I pored Praise into him and it come out Prayer and all for him self. But the dear Lord says I was to blame as much as Moyle esq so must do bettar next time but feel terrable timid. "My respects to Masr Taffy. Dr friend I done my best I come like _Nicodemus_ by night. Seeming to me when Christians fall out tis over what they pray for. When they _praise God_ forget diffnses and I cant think where the quaraling comes in and so no more at present from "Yours respflly "J. Pascoe." After supper that night, in the Parsonage kitchen, Humility kept rising from her chair, and laying her needlework aside to re-arrange the pans and kettles on the hearth. This restlessness was so unusual that Taffy, seated in the ingle with a book on his knee, had half raised his head to twit her when he felt a hand laid softly on his hair, and looked up into his mother's eyes. "Taffy, should you like to go to Oxford?" "Don't, mother!" "But you can." The tears in her eyes answered his at once. She turned to his father. "Tell him——" "Yes, my boy, you can go," said Mr. Raymond; "that is, if you can win a scholarship. Your mother and I have been talking it over." "But—" Taffy began and could get no farther. He knew nothing of his parents' affairs except that they were poor: he had always supposed, almost desperately poor. "We have money enough, with care," said Mr. Raymond. But the boy's eyes were on his mother. Her cheeks, usually so pale, were flushed; but she turned her face away and walked slowly back to her chair. "The lace-work," he heard her say: "I have been saving ... from the beginning——" "For this?" He followed and took her hand. With the other she covered her eyes; but nodded.