ng hundreds of feet
above him, and wondered how those forms came to be set flying in
mid-air, and his heart grew sad and wistful too, as if a realization of
the power and majesty of the white man fell like a poisonous, fateful
shadow over his people and himself.

II. A SHELTERED ONE.

The young man came in out of the cold dash of rain. The negro man
received his outside garments and ushered him into the drawing-room,
where a bright fire welcomed him like a smiling hostess.

He sat down with a sudden relaxation of his muscles. As he waited at his
ease, his senses absorbed the light and warmth and beauty of the house.
It was familiar and yet it had a new meaning to him. A bird was singing
somewhere in the upper chambers, caroling with a joyous note that seemed
to harmonize with the warmth and color of the room in which the caller
sat.

The young man stared at the fire, his head leaning on his hand. There
were lines of gloomy thought in his face. There were marks of bitter
struggle on his hands. His dress was strong and good, but not in the
mode. He looked like a young lawyer, with his lean, dark face, smoothly
shaven save for a little tuft on either cheek. His long hands were
heavy-jointed with toil.

He listened to the bird singing and to the answering, chirping call of a
girl's voice. His head drooped forward in deep reverie.

How beautiful her life is! his thought was. How absolutely without care
or struggle! She knows no uncertainty such as I feel daily, hourly. She
has never a doubt of daily food; the question of clothes has been a
diversion for her, a worry of choice merely. Dirt, grime, she knows
nothing of. Here she lives, sheltered in a glow of comfort and color,
while I hang by my finger-ends over a bottomless pit. She sleeps and
dreams while I fight. She is never weary, while I sink into my bed each
night as if it were my grave. Every hand held out to her is a willing
hand--if it is paid for, it is willing, for she has no enemies even
among her servants. O God! If I could only reach such a place to rest
for just a year--for just a month! But such security, such rest is out
of my reach. I must toil and toil, and when at last I reach a place to
pause and rest, I shall be old and brutalized and deadened, and my rest
will be merely--sleep.

He looked once more about the lovely room. The ocean wind tore at the
windows with wolfish claws, savage to enter.

"The world howling out there is as impotent to do