red him--the noisy Noah, the
ungovernable Silas, and the lazy Valentine.

"I'll have Silas," he said quietly.

"The worst pickle of the lot!" commented Mrs Tabitha, who made one of
the deputation.

"Maybe," said Banks calmly; "but I see wits there, and I'll hope for a
heart, and with them and the grace of God, which Collet and I shall pray
for, we'll make a man of Silas Pardue yet."

And if John Banks ever regretted his decision, it was not on a certain
winter evening, well into the reign of Elizabeth, when a fine,
manly-looking fellow, with a grand forehead wherein "his soul lodged
well," and bright intellectual eyes, came to tell him, the humble mason,
that he had been chosen from a dozen candidates for the high post of
architect of a new church.

"'Tis your doing," said the architect, as he wrung the hard hand of the
mason. "You made a man of me by your teaching and praying, and never
despairing that I should one day be worth the cost."

But we must return for a few minutes to Roger Hall's parlour, where he
and his little invalid girl were alone on that night when the conference
had been held.

"Father," said Christie, "please tell me what is a cross? and say it
little, so as I can conceive the same."

"What manner of cross, sweet heart?"

"You know what our Lord saith, Father--`He that taketh not his cross,
and followeth Me, is not worthy of Me.' I've been thinking a deal on it
of late. I wouldn't like not to be worthy of Him. But I can't take my
cross till I know what it is. I asked Cousin Friswith, and she said it
meant doing all manner of hard disagreeable things, like the monks and
nuns do--eating dry bread and sleeping of a board, and such like. But
when I talked with Pen Pardue, she said she reckoned it signified not
that at all. That was making crosses, and our Lord did not mention
that. So please, Father, what is it?"

"Methinks, my child, Pen hath the right. `Take' is not `make.' We be
to take the cross God layeth on our backs. He makes the crosses; we
have but to take them and bear them. Folks make terrible messes by
times when they essay to make their own crosses. But thou wouldest know
what is a cross? Well, for thee, methinks, anything that cometh across
thee and makes thee cross. None wist so well as thyself what so doth."

"But, Father!" said Christie in a tone of alarm.

"Well, sweet heart?"

"There must be such a lot of them!"

"For some folks, Christie, methinks the