Power and Kenrick were both thinking that this new friend of theirs, though he had been so short a time at Saint Winifred's, was teaching them some valuable lessons. Neither of them had previously recognised the truth which Walter seemed to feel so strongly, that they were to some extent directly responsible for the opportunities which they lost of helping and strengthening the boys around them. Neither of them had ever done anything, worth speaking of, to lighten the heavy burden laid on some of the little boys at Saint Winifred's; and now they heard Walter talking with something like remorse about a child who had no special claim whatever on his kindness, but whom he felt that he might more efficiently have rescued from evil associates, evil words, evil ways, and all the heart-misery they cannot fail to bring. The sense of a new mission, a neglected duty, dawned upon them both. They sat for a time silent, and then Kenrick, shaking off his reverie, pointed down the hill and said-- "Do look at those magnificent clouds; how they come surging up the hill in huge curving masses." "Yes," said Power; "doesn't it look like a grand charge of giant cavalry? Why, Walter, my dear fellow, how frightened you look." "Well, no," said Walter, "not frightened. But I say, you two, supposing those clouds which have gathered so suddenly don't clear away, do you think that you could find your way down the hill?" "I don't know; I almost think so," said Kenrick dubiously. "Ah, Ken, I suspect you haven't had as much experience of mountain-mists as I have. We _may_ find our way somehow; but--" "You mean," said Power, with strange calmness, "that there are lots of precipices about, and that shepherds have several times been lost on these hills?" "Let's hope that the mist will clear away, then," said Walter; "anyhow, let's get on the grass, and off these awkward boulders, before we are surrounded." "By all means," said Kenrick; "charges of cloud-cavalry are all very well in their way; but--" CHAPTER FIFTEEN. IN THE CLOUDS.