"He's very ill," said Henderson, looking serious; "_very_ ill, I'm afraid. I saw him to-day for a minute, but he seemed too weak to talk." "Is he? poor fellow! I knew that he was staying out, but I'd no notion that it was anything dangerous." "I don't know about _dangerous_, but he's quite ill. Poor Daubeny! you know how very very patient and good he is, yet even he can't help being sad at falling ill just now. You know he was to have been confirmed to-morrow week, and he's afraid that now he won't be well enough, and will have to put it off." "Yes, he's mentioned his confirmation to me several times. Lots of fellows are going to be confirmed this time--about a hundred, I believe--but I don't suppose one of them thinks of it so solemnly as dear old Dubbs--unless, indeed, it's Power, who also is to be confirmed." The confirmation was to take place on a Sunday, and the candidates had long been engaged in a course of preparation. The intellectual preparation was carefully undertaken by Dr Lane and the tutors of the boys; but this answer of the lips was of comparatively little value, except in so far as it tended to guide, and solemnise, and concentrate the preparation of the heart. In too many this approaching responsibility produced no visible effect in the tenor of outward life-- they talked and thought as lightly as before, and did not elevate the low standard of schoolboy morality; but there were _some_ hearts in which the dreary and formless chaos of passion and neglect then first felt the divine stirring of the brooding wings, and some spiritual temples were from that time filled more brightly than before with the Shechinah of the Presence, and bore, as in golden letters on a new entablature, the inscription, "Holiness to the Lord." To this confirmation some of the best boys, like Power and Daubeny, were looking forward, not with any exaggerated or romantic sentimentality, but with a deep humility, a manly exultation, an earnest hope. They were ready and even anxious to confirm their baptismal vow, and to be confirmed in the sacred strength which should enable them for the future more unswervingly to fulfil it. Of these young hearts the grace of God took early hold, and in them reason and religion ran together like warp and woof to frame the web of a sweet and exemplary life. Bound by the most solemn and public recognition of, and adhesion to, their Christian duty, it would be easier for them thenceforth to confess Christ before men--easier to do justice, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with their God. "Do you think it would be possible to see Dubbs? I should so like to see him," said Walter. "Let's ask Percival, he's in the next room; and if Dubbs is well enough I know he'd give anything to see you." "Please, sir," said Walter, after knocking for admission at the door of the inner room, "do you think that Henderson and I might go to the cottage and see Daubeny?"