e than anything in this world!"

He returned to the teasing.

"If he doesn't take me, I'm going to run away. You won't want ever to
see me any more. And then nobody will ever know what becomes of me
because I couldn't sing."

She strained him again to herself and murmured over him:

"My chorister! My minstrel! My life!"

"Good night and pleasant dreams!" he said, with his arms around her neck
finally. "Good night and sweet sleep!"

* * * * *

Everything was quiet. She had tipped to his bedside and stood looking at
him after slumber had carried him away from her, a little distance away.

"My heavenly guest!" she murmured. "My guest from the singing stars of
God!"

Though worn out with the strain and excitements of the day, she was not
yet ready for sleep. She must have the luxuries of consciousness; she
must tread the roomy spaces of reflection and be soothed in their
largeness. And so she had gone to her windows and had remained there
for a long time looking out upon the night.

The street beneath was dimly lighted. Traffic had almost ceased. Now and
then a car sped past. The thoroughfare along here is level and broad and
smooth, and being skirted on one side by the park, it offers to speeding
vehicles the illusive freedom of a country road. Across the street at
the foot of the park a few lights gleamed scant amid the April foliage.
She began at the foot of the hill and followed the line of them upward,
upward over the face of the rock, leading this way and that way, but
always upward. There on the height in the darkness loomed the cathedral.

Often during the trouble and discouragement of years it had seemed to
her that her own life and every other life would have had more meaning
if only there had been, away off somewhere in the universe, a higher
evil intelligence to look on and laugh, to laugh pitilessly at every
human thing. She had held on to her faith because she must hold on to
something, and she had nothing else. Now as she stood there, following
the winding night road over the rock, her thoughts went back and
searched once more along the wandering pathway of her years; and she
said that a Power greater than any earthly had led her with her son to
the hidden goal of them both, the cathedral.

The next day brought no disappointment: he had rushed home and thrown
himself into her arms and told her that he was accepted. He was to sing
in the choir. The hope had become a