"But what was the upshot, Janet?"

"I canna tell. God alone understan's quarreling folk."

Then David went upstairs to his own room, and when he came down again
his face was set as dourly against the coming interview as it had been
against the mist and rain. The point at issue was quite familiar to
him; his mother wished him to continue his studies and prepare for the
ministry. In her opinion the greatest of all men were the servants of
the King, and a part of the spiritual power and social influence which
they enjoyed in St. Mungo's ancient city she earnestly coveted for her
son. "Didn't the Bailies and the Lord Provost wait for them? And were
not even the landed gentry and nobles obligated to walk behind a
minister in his gown and bands?"

Old Andrew Lockerby thought the honor good enough, but money was better.
All the twenty years that his wife had been dreaming of David ruling his
flock from the very throne of a pulpit, Andrew had been dreaming of him
becoming a great merchant or banker, and winning back the fair lands of
Ellenmount, once the patrimonial estate of the house of Lockerby. During
these twenty years both husband and wife had clung tenaciously to their
several intentions.

Now David's teachers--without any knowledge of these diverse
influences--had urged on him the duty of cultivating the unusual talents
confided to him, and of consecrating them to some noble service of God
and humanity. But David was ruled by many opposite feelings, and had
with all his book-learning the very smallest intimate acquaintance with
himself. He knew neither his strong points nor his weak ones, and had
not even a suspicion of the mighty potency of that mysterious love for