the intrusion.
Neither could he turn back into the schoolroom, sit down, and begin.
He put his hand on Davie's shoulder, and walked slowly towards the
lawn. The ladies followed in silence. He sought to forget their
presence, and be conscious only of his pupil's and his master's. On
the lawn he stopped suddenly.

"Davie," he said, "where do you fancy the first lesson in the New
Testament ought to begin?"

"At the beginning," replied Davie.

"When a thing is perfect, Davie, it is difficult to say what is the
beginning of it: show me one of your marbles."

The boy produced from his pocket a pure white one--a real marble.

"That is a good one for the purpose," remarked Donal, "--very smooth
and white, with just one red streak in it! Now where is the beginning
of this marble?"

"Nowhere," answered Davie.

"If I should say everywhere?" suggested Donal.

"Ah, yes!" said the boy.

"But I agree with you that it begins nowhere."

"It can't do both!"

"Oh, yes, it can! it begins nowhere for itself, but everywhere for us.
Only all its beginnings are endings, and all its endings are
beginnings. Look here: suppose we begin at this red streak, it is just
there we should end again. That is because it is a perfect
thing.--Well, there was one who said, 'I am Alpha and Omega,'--the
first Greek letter and the last, you know--'the beginning and the end,
the first and the last.' All the New Testament is about him. He is
perfect, and I may begin about him where I best can. Listen then as if
you had never heard anything about him before.--Many years ago--about
fifty or sixty grandfathers off--there appeared in the world a few men
who said that a certain man had been their companion for some time and
had just left them; that he was killed by cruel men, and buried by his
friends; but that, as he had told them he would, he lay in the grave
only three days, and left it on the third alive and well; and that,
after forty days, during which they saw him several times, he went up
into the sky, and disappeared.--It wasn't a very likely story, was it?"

"No," replied Davie.

The ladies exchanged looks of horror. Neither spoke, but each leaned
eagerly forward, in fascinated expectation of worse to follow.

"But, Davie," Donal went on, "however unlikely it must have seemed to
those who heard it, I believe every word of it."

A ripple of contempt passed over Miss Carmichael's face.

"For," continued Donal, "the man said he wa