“I know,” said Helen, nodding. “It’s a private classification of theologues. Which does it catalogue, their theology or their intellects? Come, Papa!”
“I’ll never tell you!” laughed the Professor, shutting his thin, scholarly lips. And he never did. But the laugh had gained the point, as she intended. He took his German student lamp and started upstairs. Helen walked through the long, dim hall with her two hands clasped lovingly upon his arm.
“I am bothered,” admitted the Professor, stopping at the foot of the stairs, “about one of my boys. He is rather a favorite with me. There isn’t a finer intellect in the senior class.”
“But how about his Christianity, Father?” asked the girl mischievously.
“His Christianity is all right, so far as I know,” admitted the Professor slowly. “It is his theology that is the hitch. He isn’t sound. He has received no call.”
“Do I know him?” asked Helen in a different tone.
The Professor of Theology turned, and held his student lamp at arm’s length above his daughter’s face, which he scanned in silence before he said:—
“I am not prepared to answer that question, Helen. Whether you know him I can’t say; I really cannot say whether you know him or not. I’m not sure whether I do, myself. But I am much annoyed about the matter. It is a misfortune to the Seminary, and a mortification to the young man.”
He kissed his daughter tenderly, and went upstairs with the weary tread of a professional man at the end of a long day’s work.