o rest and pray, and think not of these lights and flashes, which
are never told of in Holy Church, except in the case of those who are
held of evil." And he rose and made a gesture that Herbert should go;
so Herbert kissed the Bishop's hand and went very sadly out, for it
seemed as though his burden was too great for him to bear.

There followed very sad and weary days when Herbert hardly knew how
he could bear the sorrow that pressed upon him. But he preached
diligently, and went in and out among his people. And in that time he
helped many sad souls and set struggling feet upon the right road,
though he knew it not and even cared not.

One day he was walking in the street, and came past a little mean
house that lay on the outskirts of the town. There was a small and
pitiful garden, sadly disordered, that lay in front of the house. Here
there dwelt a wretched man named John, who had done an evil deed in
his youth. He had robbed his mother, it was said, a poor and crippled
woman, of her little savings; she had struggled hard for her all, but
he had beaten her off, and done her violence, and she, between grief
and disease, had died. In her last hour she had told the tale; her son
had been driven from his employment, and the hearts of all had turned
against him. He had left the place, but a few years after he had
returned, a man old before his time, with a sore disease upon him, in
which all readily saw the wise judgment of God.

He had settled in the little house which had been his mother's before
him, and had stood vacant. But none would admit him to their houses or
give him work. Occasionally, when labour was short, he had a task
given him; but he was slow and feeble, and those that worked with him
mocked and derided him. He bore all mockeries patiently and silently,
with a kind of hunted look; but none pitied him, and the very children
of the street would point at him, call him murderer, and throw stones
at him. He would seek at times to do a kindness to the poor and
sorrowful by stealth, but his help was often refused even with anger.

Herbert had seen a little sight a few days before that stuck in his
mind. He had been passing along the road that led into the country,
and had seen some way ahead of him a little child, a girl, with a
heavy burden. She had put it down by the wood to rest, when John came
suddenly upon her from a lane, where he had been wandering, as his
manner was. The girl had seemed frightened, bu