s any good?" '

'_He_ did not find defeat,' said Hazel, looking at the martyr's
face, and somehow forgetting the arrows and the cords.

'The story is,' said Dr. Maryland, 'that he was an officer,
high in trust and command, in the service of the Emperor
(Diocletian.). For owning himself a Christian, he was stripped
of power and place, delivered into the will of his enemies, to
be bound to a tree and shot to death with arrows. There is the
human defeat, my dear Hazel. What you see in the face there,
is the mental victory;--some of the struggle, too.'

' "Mental victory" '--she said half to herself, considering the
words. 'I ought to be equal to that. Did you mean "defeat,"
Dr. Arthur, by "the loss of all things?" '

'No,' said Dr. Arthur, 'I meant anything but that. I meant
nothing worse than the exchange of a handful of soiled paper
for both the hands full of solid gold.'

'Ah you all talk such riddles!' said the girl, knitting her
brows. 'What would it be to me, I mean? That I should lose
Chickaree?--but that is impossible.'

'It was said,' Dr. Maryland answered,--'and the Lord said it--
"Whosoever he be of you that forsaketh not all that he hath,
he cannot by my disciple." '

'Yes, sir, but--' she said quickly,--then checked herself.

'Well, my dear? My words will come best in answer to your
questions, for then they can meet the very point of your
difficulty.'

'You will not think me disrespectful, sir?--I was going to say,
_you_ do not do that'--said Hazel, hesitating over her words.
'None of you. You have Prim and Dr. Arthur,--and Dr. Arthur
comes home, and then Prim has her brother. And there is the
pretty house, and books, and engravings. I don't know anything
about Mr. Rollo, of course,' she said, correcting herself,
'but I mean the rest of you.'

'May we sit down?' said Dr. Maryland, 'Dane and I have walked
up from Mr. Falkirk's. Unless Dane likes to stand to
accommodate the cat!' said the doctor with a humourous glance
at the shoulder where pussy sat with shut eyes, purring
contentedly. 'It's a fair question, Hazel; and an easy
mistake. But my dear, so far as I know, Prim and Arthur and I
have not kept anything. For myself,' said Dr. Maryland,
lifting up a bright face, 'all that I have is my Master's. I
am not the owner even of myself. So long as his service bids
me use the things entrusted to me in the way I am doing, I
will use them so. And whenever his honour, or his work, calls
me to give up