“The President and Treasurer were to have been here at five o’clock.”

“I have heard nothing of it,” said the Librarian.  “I am sure that the President is out of town for the day.”

“Strange! strange!” exclaimed the Reverend Mr. Clifton, in a very excited tone.  “I wish to make a deposit of great importance in the Mather Safe.  I had the assurance that the Safe should be opened at five this afternoon.  Here, read the solemn promise upon which I have come from Foxden!”

The Librarian glanced at an open letter which Clifton held out to him, and said, in a quiet manner,—­

“The President promises to meet you in the College Library on the afternoon of Thursday, the twenty-fourth instant; to-day is Wednesday, the twenty-third.”

“Is it possible?” muttered the clergyman, with a look of startled despair.  “Pardon my disturbance.  I have been hardly myself for these last weeks.  Yet I can wait.”

I spoke to Mr. Clifton as he was about to leave the library.  He blenched at hearing my voice, and strove to conceal the package beneath his arm.

“How do my good friends in Foxden?” said I, inviting him into my alcove.  “Is it true that Dr. Dastick has presented his cabinet of curiosities to the town?”

“What are you reading?” said the clergyman, in a tone of curt authority very foreign to the mild persuasiveness of his usual professional accents.

I exhibited the title of the book:  it was the “Meditations of Descartes.”

“And do you follow those who vainly seek for truth through the inner world of man, not conforming themselves to the necessities of the outward world and the teachings of Revelation?”

I defended the usefulness of some acquaintance with the original and powerful thinker, whose apologies are certainly profuse enough to satisfy the most orthodox.

“Yes; I suppose you read Spinoza, Hegel, Fichte, the Atheism of D’Holbach, Utilitarianism Systematized by Auguste Comte!  Did you ever go fishing in a dory when the wind was off shore?”

There was an alarm in the eye and manner of Mr. Clifton, a tremulous restlessness in his speech, which warned me to avoid discussion, and endeavor to soothe his agitation.  It was only to the last interrogatory, therefore, that I made some light reply.

“The sea sparkles gayly,” pursued the clergyman, in the manner of an extemporaneous preacher who strives to catch in a net of decorations some illustration which presents itself,—­“the boat tosses on from wave to wave, for dories will sail before the wind.  Soon we are miles from shore, and throw the anchor.  What auspicious expansion of soul and body!  How we slide up and down the backs of great billows, and cast our lines with ever-varying success!  But the night comes, and with it the necessity of rowing back against wind and tide.  Ah, then how long the lonely ocean-leagues!  How distant the time when we may hope to stand confused and giddy upon solid earth!  Some never see the land again, but are swept out into the storm and darkness, and are lost,—­lost!”