"Samuel!" Dr. Lavendar protested with indignation, "how can he become worthy of trust without being trusted? You have no more right to shut up a grown man in Old Chester for fear of temptation, than you would have to keep a growing boy in his first pair of trousers! Why, Sam, there isn't any virtue where there has never been any temptation. Virtue is just temptation, overcome. Hasn't that ever struck you? However, that's not the point. The point is, that your father has expressed a willingness to meet you." Mr. Wright made no answer. "He will talk over with you this matter of Sam's falling in love. Whether you agree with him that the boy should go away, is not important. What is important is his desire to see you." "I said," Samuel Wright broke out, with a violence that made Dr. Lavendar start--"I said I would never speak to him again! I took my oath. I cannot break my oath. 'He that sweareth to his own hurt, and changeth not--'" "Yes," said Dr. Lavendar; "'to his own hurt,' but not to somebody else's hurt. You swore to your father's, to your children's, to the community's hurt. Change as quickly as you can. Come up the hill with me to-night." "I can't," Samuel Wright said hoarsely, and into his hard eyes came the same look of childish terror that the old minister had seen in Benjamin Wright's face when he sat in the hot sunshine watching the canaries. Then Dr. Lavendar began to plead.... It was a long struggle. Sometimes it really seemed as if, as the senior warden had said, he "could not" do it; as if it were a physical impossibility. And there is no doubt that to change a habit of thought which has endured for thirty-two years involves a physical as well as a spiritual effort, which may cause absolute anguish. Mr. Wright's face was white; twice he wiped the perspiration from his forehead: half a dozen times he said in an agonized tone, "I cannot do it; I _cannot._" "Samuel, your father is very old; he is very feeble; but he has had the strength to take the first step. Haven't you the strength to take the second? Will you carry your wicked quarrel to his grave? No, Sam, no! I am sure you won't."... An hour later, when Dr. Lavendar sat down to a dinner of more than ordinary Sunday coldness, his old face was twinkling with pleasure. Samuel had promised to go with him that night to The Top! Perhaps as the still afternoon softened into dusk his joy began to cast a shadow of apprehension. If so, he refused to notice it. It was the Lord's business, and "He moves in a mysterious way," he hummed to himself, waiting in the warm darkness for Samuel to call for him,--for both the quailing men had made Dr. Lavendar's presence a condition of the interview.