erior.
A few doors beyond this the houses reach the climax of desolate
disorder. The whole place is tumbling down; the window is broken; the
battered door is off its hinges, propped up against the wall. A cripple
girl is sitting on a broken box, turned upside down, immediately outside
this miserable hovel. Her face is a greater shock to Hazel than any of
the other wretchedness around. There is a desperation of bitterness in
that set, white face, with its hollow eyes and cheeks, which is
absolutely appalling. Hazel had always imagined that suffering must of
necessity, by its own inherent nature, bring with it a patience which
would be reflected in a sweet face. Slowly, as she scans those immovable
features, full of pain, and still more full of dogged rebellion, this
idea has to be abandoned. Here obviously is a human being in the midst
of a noisy squalor, whose physical disease and torture is unlightened by
one softening ray of hope; whose misery is too sullen and dull to rise
even to the hope of putting an end to itself.

One moment and the deformed girl starts apprehensively. A sob has
sounded in her ear, and some one, unlike any she has ever seen
heretofore, stands beside her, taking her hand in mute, unspeakable
compassion. She cowers back against the wall and drags away her hand;
Hazel's purity and loveliness raises in her only a shrinking dislike and
dread of contact.

It is long before the pleading, loving voice gains any hearing; but at
last, before the two part, some faint expression of intelligent thought
has dawned on the lame girl's brow; and in her mind a question has been
raised, "Can it be that there is one who loves me and has need of me?"

The evening sunlight is falling through the birches in the beautiful
garden; the air is full of fragrance and harmony; the queen is
returning. Wearily she opens the gate to enter. She is filled with pain,
for the many sadnesses to which she has drawn near have touched her own
soul with the shadow of suffering.

Suddenly, in the chequered shade of the trees at the entrance of the
garden, she stops and turns round, for a bright radiance envelops her.
And, lo! there stands One, in glorious light--One in whose Divine face
love is shining. Hazel bows down, her whole soul overwhelmed with
reverent awe. Then her hand is taken and held with a touch which thrills
her with exquisite rapture, and a voice in her ears says--

"Come, see with Me My garden."

And the air, whic