Outside, walking to and fro upon the broad gravel walk, he caught sight of Mr. Grantly. His hands were in his pockets, his college cap pulled forward, and his eyes fixed upon the ground. Dr. Piercey tapped at the window, and Mr. Grantly, obeying his signal with a readiness which seemed to show that already they had divined each other's thoughts, made his way into the doctor's presence.

"Well?" said the doctor, fixing his eyes upon him.

Mr. Grantly looked at him with a faint smile, but said nothing. "Are you satisfied?"

"Satisfied? Yes; I suppose so. One has no right to be otherwise. Are you?

The doctor did not answer immediately, but took another turn or two about his study.

"I am, and I am not," he said, presently. "There are difficulties and anomalies in all these matters which, I suppose, it is impossible to avoid. Those scholarships-"

"Ah, yes!" cried Mr. Grantly, anticipating what the doctor was about to say.

"They were rightly awarded, no doubt; they could not have been given otherwise, and yet there are other boys, as you know, who are much more in need of such assistance, and also much more deserving of it."

"Yes, indeed!"

"There is Willow, for instance. That boy has worked more steadily, more conscientiously, more devotedly than any other boy in the school."

"Except young Howard," Mr. Grantly interrupted.

"Well, you may except him if you please, but he is not such good material, and I had not the same hope of him.

Willow

and Howard have worked harder, and are more deserving of reward, than any other boys in the school."

"And they have both failed."

"Yes; Willow's failure can only be attributed to the element of uncertainty which pervades all examinations. He ought to have done better; he is a sounder and more accurate scholar than either of the others. The successful boys are Archer-whose chief merit is that he is naturally clever, though not usually industrious-and Tufton, who has had the advantage of a private tutor to prepare him specially for this examination. Tufton is a year older than Willow, yet the younger boy ran him very closely; there were but few marks between them; and Howard has done more than either of them in the way of work, and yet he fails to obtain the prize."

"Quite true; he is not so clever nor so strong. That makes all the difference. He is beaten by superior natural abilities and sounder health."

"And so," said Dr. Piercey, "some boys are rewarded for being clever and healthy, while others, who are only industrious and good all round, have no chance."

"It is the same in most things," Mr. Grantly answered, delighted to find that the grievance which he had been nursing in his own mind was troubling the doctor also. "The clever boys carry off everything; the mere hard-workers get nothing. Archer 'carries all before him,' as they say. I hate the phrase-I detest it. A boy has no right to carry all before him. To-day we have seen one boy walking off with half-adozen prizes, while those more deserving, and to whom a little encouragement would have been profitable, are left out in the cold. He did the same last year, and will do the same next year. At Oxford or Cambridge he will repeat the process, and then another boy will follow and do as he has done, 'carrying all before him.' And why? Because he works harder than others? No. Because he is in more need of assistance? Nothing of the kind. But because he has better natural abilities and better opportunities of cultivating them."

"Industrious as well, we must admit," said the doctor.

"Not more industrious than others," was the reply. "If there is any difference the less clever are very often the more industrious. If the iron be blunt, and he do not whet the edge, then must he put to more strength,' says the proverb. Our dull boys must put to 'more strength.' The sharper a boy is the more pleasant his work will be, and the less effort will be required to give the necessary application. But let us say that the industry is equal; then the cleverness, the natural talent inherited from the parent, or bestowed by Him who made both, is the thing rewarded. It is the old story: a divine truth perverted and misapplied by man's incompetency-'to him that hath shall be given.""

"It cannot be helped," said the doctor. "The boys carry out the same system themselves even in their sports. At the 'athletics' the other day one boy received half-a-dozen prizes, and went away loaded with as many cups and trophies as he could carry in his arms, and each time he was called up the applause became more rapturous. One might have supposed that he had performed some highly meritorious or heroic deed, whereas the simple fact was that he was stronger and healthier than his neighbours, or had longer legs."

"Yes!" Mr. Grantly exclaimed, with great warmth; “and that boy Howard, who went over the cliff and risked his life to save a schoolfellow-"

"To say nothing of my brains," Dr. Piercey remarked, parenthetically.

"Young Howard—who performed a much more daring feat than any of the others, and for a nobler object-I won't say gained no distinction, but received no prize."

"I wish we could order it differently," said the doctor. "I am so sorry for some of our boys; and they behave so nobly under their disappointments."

“That is the only gleam of comfort I can see," said Mr. Grantly, brightening up; "and I believe it gives the clue to the whole difficulty. Boys will gain more sometimes by defeat than by success. The effort they have made does them good, and the disappointment does them in the long run no harm. It is a painful discipline, however, and vexes me almost as much as it does them."

"It is like everything else in this world," the doctor answered. "We see but a little of it. All comes right in the end, no doubt. We must walk by faith and not by sight. It does not always follow that boys who gain the chief honours at school are equally successful afterwards. I believe the plodders come to the front more generally; and such, let us hope, will be the case with ours."

"The system is wrong, however," Mr. Grantly persisted. "I wish there could be prizes for industry and merit, as distinct from results."

"How is the merit to be proved?" the doctor asked.

"Not by a competitive examination, certainly, especially when conducted by outsiders. The house-masters and tutors might assist in the decision; their recommendation ought to be worth something."

"There might be suspicions of favouritism in that case." "That would be unpleasant for us; but if the suspicions were without reason, it would be all right for the boys."

"It would not do at all," said the doctor.

"Perhaps not."

"Well, there are some books for Howard. Take them to him and say a kind word from me. I will go and see him myself by-and-by. How is he?"

"Very unwell, I fear."

"Nothing serious?"

"I trust not. He wants rest, Mr. Calvert says; that is all.

He will not be fit to travel to-morrow, though, and that will be another trial for him."

They were both silent and serious for some minutes. Then suddenly the doctor, springing from his chair, exclaimed, "Hurrah for the holidays! Begone dull care! and so on." Throwing off his thoughtful mood, together with his hood and gown, he flung his "mortar-board" up to the ceiling and caught it upon his foot; and if he had not been interrupted at that moment by a knock at the study door, there is no saying what foolish antics he might not have been guilty of.

"Dulce est desipere in loco," he said; "if one could only be really wise at other times how pleasant that would be!"

The Latin sentiment, without the doctor's comment upon it, prevailed throughout the college that evening; and at night there was a great disturbance in the dormitories. The masters looked in once or twice, but did not attempt to put a stop to it. Bolstering went on till they were all tired of it, and when that had ceased, talking and laughing continued to a late hour. Some of the seniors were sitting up to a grand supper, and their voices were heard singing glees. The burden of one of their songs was Dulce, dulce, dulce domum; and as these well-known words sounded through the house the boys in the dormitories took up the chorus and repeated it with great heartiness and vigour-Dulce, dulce, dulce domum; but Mr. Grantly appeared among them, and with a few words, to which they listened with interest and sympathy, quieted them. After that there was comparative silence, though voices were heard occasionally chatting until the small hours had begun. Yet the boys were awake again soon after sunrise, and the delightful hurry of packing up and packing off went on incessantly till noon, by which time all the boys were gone, and solitude and silence reigned at Abbotscliff.

Except that in one chamber of the boarding-house, apart