It was not many days before I was sent for to administer the Holy Communion for the last time to this faithful old Churchman. I shall never forget the scene that greeted me when I entered the room. It was on the Feast of the Conversion of St. Paul, and there had been a celebration in church. We used the old Scotch Communion Office at Drumscondie, which provides for Reservation for the Sick; and so I wended my way through the village, carrying the Communion vessels. All who saw me knew whither I was going, and no one spoke. When I entered the sick chamber I felt as if I were entering a sacred place. Everything was so spotlessly neat and clean; the dying man was slightly raised in bed, and his eager look betokened anticipated joy and peace. A small table, covered with an immaculately white cloth, had on it a bowl of beautiful winter flowers. None in that household knew anything of what is now known as “_Catholic_” ritual; but they had a grip of the Christian verities that made them instinctively do everything “_in decency and order_”; aye, more, they recognized the special presence of the Divine, and no trouble was too great to give expression to the honor which was to be theirs. Sandy Barras was my first friend in Drumscondie; no one respected my office more than he; and when he gave me his counsel, as he often did, it was never in a dictatorial way, but as an aged servant of God would advise a young brother and seek to keep him from falling into such mistakes as are liable to spring from inexperience. He was my first, but by no means my only staunch friend in my new charge; of some of the others I may speak another day. VIII. An Auld-Farrant Laddie I was quite a stranger in my new parish when I first made the acquaintance of James Morton, one of the brightest and most original characters it has ever been my fortune to meet. He was then but a boy of sixteen, but, somehow or other, one never thought of him as a boy; there was an indescribable something about him which called up to one’s mind the oft-quoted text from the Book of Wisdom: “He being made perfect in a short time hath fulfilled a long time.”