boy ran chattering to me as I said these words, he sprang and
clasped my knees, and clasped my neck, and put his little lips to mine,
and rubbed his warm, moist curls across my cheek, and asked me where
his mother was. And then he crooned my own name over and over again,
and kissed and kissed me, and did stroke me with such pretty excesses
of his little tenderness that I took heart and held him fast, and loved
him and blessed fate for him, as much as if I had not been a spirit;
more than any but a lonely and remorseful spirit could.

CHAPTER XIV.

In consequence, as I suspected, of some private influence on the part
of my famous friend, whose importance in this strange world seemed
scarcely below that which he held in the other,--a marked contrast to
my own lot, which had been thus far in utter reversal of every law and
every fact of my earthly life,--a humble position was found for me,
connected with the great institution of healing which he superintended;
and here, for an indefinite time, I worked and served. I found myself
of scarcely more social importance than, let us say, the janitor or
steward in my old hospital at home. This circumstance, however
galling, could no longer surprise me. I had become familiar enough
with the economy of my new surroundings now thoroughly to understand
that I was destitute of the attainments which gave men eminence in
them. I was conscious that I had become an obscure person; nay, more
than this, that I had barely brought with me the requisites for being
tolerated at all in the community. It had begun to be evident to me
that I was fortunate in obtaining any kind of admission to citizenship.
This alone was an experience so novel to me that it was an occupation
in itself, for a time, to adjust myself to it.

I now established myself with my boy in such a home as could be made
for us, under the circumstances. It was far inferior to most of the
homes which I observed about me; but the child lacked no necessary
comfort, and the luxuries of a spiritual civilization I did not
personally crave; they had a foreign air to me, as the customs of the
Tuileries might have had to Pocahontas.

With dull gratitude for such plain possessions as now were granted to
me, I set myself to my daily tasks, and to the care and rearing of my
child.

Work I found an unqualified mercy. It even occurred to me to be
thankful for it, and to desire to express what I felt about it to the
unknown