Margaret kissed her brother’s cheek and left him. She had a feeling that he and she were far apart in religious matters, and she was right in her belief. Alec Lindsay had read modern philosophy; he had been taught at College that ‘free-thought’ was a man’s inalienable inheritance, and that it was a species of intellectual suicide to stifle a doubt. In the Calvinism he had learned in childhood there was plenty of dogma certainly; but then he did not like the dogma, and he saw no particular reason for believing it. He was, in fact, a Theist; but he gave his father no hint that his religious opinions had undergone a change. He knew very well that if he had so much as expressed a doubt as to the soundness of the Calvinist doctrine of Predestination, or the lawfulness of taking a walk or reading a novel on a Sunday, his father would have been shocked beyond expression, and would first have stormed at him, and then mourned him as one who had already sold himself to the Evil One. Nothing more passed between father and son for some days, and then Mr. Lindsay asked Alec point-blank whether he was going to devote himself to ‘the ministry of the Gospel.’ ‘No, father; I have no inclination of that kind, and I think that without a very strong disposition to such a life it would be wrong to begin it.’ The elder man fixed a cold look on his son, but made no reply. ‘Don’t you think I am right in saying so?’ asked Alec. The laird continued to gaze at his son without speaking, and Alec abruptly left the room. About a week afterwards Alec was startled by his father saying to him one morning: ‘I have just had a note from your uncle James. He is willing to take you into his office, and give you a small salary. The sooner you can get ready to go the better.’ ‘But I have no taste for a business life. I am not fitted for it, and I----’ ‘Perhaps you will tell me what you _are_ fit for,’ cried the old laird. ‘Just understand this. If you choose to reject this offer, I shall have no more to say to you. You may take your own way, and I wash my hands of you. It seems to me you are bent on throwing away your chances.’ ‘Surely, sir, it is better to follow one’s own inclination in choosing a profession?’ ‘And what may be your inclination?’ ‘I should like to be a lawyer.’ ‘And who is to support you while you are studying law?’ ‘Others have begun as poor as I, and have risen to the top of the tree.’ ‘It is madness--sheer madness!’ exclaimed the laird, rising and pacing up and down the room. ‘I can begin as clerk in an office,’ said Alec. ‘You shall do nothing of the kind!’ shouted his father. ‘You would know, if you knew anything at all about it, that you would not be paid while your articles were running. Perhaps you would like to be an advocate?’[1] Alec was silent; for he knew that if he confessed that his real wish was to go to the bar, he would only the more effectually rouse his father’s anger.