him out at all, and what they would say. Dr. Somers probably would have been the best counsellor of all, but Edgar had no confidence nor pleasure in the Doctor since their last interview. So he chose Mr. Fielding in his study, and Miss Somers on her sofa, two people whose lives had not come to much; but surely they were old enough to know. Mr. Fielding was in his study writing his sermon. It was the day after one of his grand discussions with the Doctor, and the good man was excited. He was engaged in the manufacture of a polemical sermon, culling little bits out of the polemical sermons which had gone before, but combining them so with links of the new that his adversary might not perceive the antiquity of some of his arguments. It was a relief to him to lay down his pen and clear his mind from the fumes of controversy. “I am very glad to see you, Edgar,” he said. “You find me in the midst of my troubles. Young Denbigh, you know, ought to take the preaching more than he does, but I have no confidence in him in a doctrinal point of view. He would be bringing up some of the new notions, and setting our good folks by the ears--though it is rather hard upon me to preach so often myself.” “But you are the best able to instruct us, Sir,” said Edgar, who to tell the truth did not often derive a great deal of instruction from Mr. Fielding’s good little sermons. And then the excellent Rector coughed modestly, and blushed a little, and put his paper away from him with a gently deprecating air. “I suppose, when one lives to be seventy, one must have learned a little--if one has made a right start,” he said, “at least I hope so, Edgar, I hope so; though some of us unfortunately---- The thing that startles me is that Somers should take the Calvinist view. I would not judge him--I would be, indeed, the very last to judge any one; but how a man who has lived, on the whole, rather a careless sort of life--not culpable, I don’t say that--but careless, as, indeed, the best of us are--should stand up for hell and torture, and all that, is more than I can guess. If he had taken another view--more lax instead of more strict----” “Do you think he cares at all?” said Edgar, still under the prejudice of his last interview. “God bless us, yes; surely he must care; don’t you think he cares, Edgar? Why, then, he must be sniggering in his sleeve at me. No, no, my dear boy, of course he must be in earnest; no man could be such a humbug as that. But if it was Mrs. Murray, who is Scotch, it would seem more natural. I hear she was in Church on Sunday, looking very serious. But, bless me, Edgar, you are very serious too. Is there anything wrong--with Clare?” “There is nothing wrong--with anybody,” said Edgar. “The fact is, I want your advice. At least, it is not I that want it, but--a very intimate friend of mine. He has got a sister, just like me, very pretty, and all that; but he does not know what to do----”