, you know,--the
eloquent philanthropist and reformer;--and to have it said that his door
had been shut against a perishing stranger might hurt him. So, as I
remarked, she concluded to take pity on the boy, and, after duly
weighing the matter, to call him back. And she called,--though, as I
suspect, not very loud. Moreover, the wind was whistling through the
leafless shrubbery, and his rags were fluttering, and his hat was
flapping about his ears, and the rain was pelting him; and just then the
Judge's respectable dog put his head out of the warm, dry kennel, and
barked; so that he did not hear,--the lady believed.

He had heard very well, nevertheless. Why didn't he go back, then?
Maybe, because he was a fool. More likely, because he was, after all,
human. Within that husk of rags, under all that dull incumbrance of
imperfect physical organs that cramped and stifled it, there dwelt a
soul; and the soul of man knows its own worth, and is proud. The
coarsest, most degraded drudge still harbors in his wretched house of
clay a divine guest. There is that in the convict and slave which stirs
yet at an insult. And even in this lank, half-witted lad, the despised
and outcast of years, there abode a sense of inalienable dignity,--an
immanent instinct that he, too, was a creature of God, and worthy
therefore to be treated with a certain tenderness and respect, and not
to be roughly repulsed. This was as strong in him as in you. His wisdom
was little, but his will was firm. And though the house was cheerful and
large, and had room and comforts enough and to spare, rather than enter
it, after he had been flatly told he was not wanted, he would lie down
in the cold, wet fields and die.

"Certainly, he will find shelter somewhere," thought the Judge's lady,
discharging her conscience of the responsibility. "But I am sorry he
didn't hear."

Was she very sorry?

She went back into her cozy, fire-lighted sewing-room, and thought no
more of the beggar-boy. And the watchdog, having barked his well-bred,
formal bark, without undue heat,--like a dog that knew the world, and
had acquired the tone of society,--stood a minute, important,
contemplating the drizzle from the door of his kennel, out of which he
had not deigned to step, then stretched himself once more on his straw,
gave a sigh of repose, and curled himself up, with his nose to the air,
in an attitude of canine enjoyment, in which it was to be hoped no
inconsiderate vagabond