“And Miss Rexford,” said good Mrs. Brown, “we hear you have had the privilege of knowing Principal Trenholme for a long time before he came out here.  He is a very good man; for so comparatively young a man, and one, as you might say, with so many worldly advantages, I think it is perhaps remarkable that he is so spiritually-minded.  I count it a blessing that we have the opportunity of attending his church during the summer months.”  Simple sense and perfect sincerity were written on every line of Mrs. Brown’s motherly face.

“He really is very good,” said one of the daughters.  “Do you know, Miss Rexford, we have a friend who has a son at the college.  He really went to the college a very naughty boy, no one could manage him; and he’s so changed—­such a nice fellow, and doing so well.  His mother says she could thank Principal Trenholme on her knees, if it was only the conventional thing to do.”

“He is a most devoted Christian,” added Mrs. Brown, using the religious terms to which she was accustomed, “and I believe he makes it a matter of prayer that no young man should leave his college without deepened religious life.  I believe in prayer as a power; don’t you, Miss Rexford?”

“Yes,” replied Sophia, tersely.  She did not feel at that moment as if she wanted to discuss the point.

“And then he’s so jolly,” put in the youngest Miss Brown, who was a hearty girl.  “That’s the sort of religion for me, the kind that can rollick—­of course I mean out of church,” she added naively.

Blue and Red sat shyly upon their chairs and listened to this discourse.  It might have been Greek for all the interest they took in it.

As for Sophia, it could not be said to lack interest for her—­it was very plain, she thought, why Robert Trenholme thought so highly of the Browns.

There was a youth belonging to this family who was a year or two older than Blue and Red.  His mother, sent for him to come into the room, and introduced him to them.  He was a nice youth, but precocious; he said to them: 

“I suppose you think Chellaston is a very pretty place, but I’ll tell you what our natural beauties lack as yet.  It is such a literature as you have in England, which has done so much to endear the wildflowers and birds and all natural objects there to the heart of the people.  Our Canadian flora and fauna are at present unsung, and therefore, to a large extent, unobserved by the people, for I think the chief use of the poet is to interpret nature to the people—­don’t you?”

Blue ventured “yes,” and Red lisped in confusion, “Do you think so, really?” but as for any opinion on the subject they had none.  Sophia, fearing that her sisters would be cast aside as hopeless dunces, was obliged to turn partially from the praise that was being lavished on Trenholme to make some pithy remark upon the uses of the poet.

Sophia, although half conscious of her own unreasonableness, decided now that the Browns might go one way and she another; but she was indebted to this visit for a clue in analysing the impression Trenholme made upon her.  His new friends had called him noble; she knew now that when she knew him ten years before he had seemed to her a more noble character.