will bestrew your path: and every
roughness which is surmounted, every hardship which is endured, every
sacrifice of self which is offered up to One who made the greatest
possible sacrifice for us all, will leave you happier than before . . .
happier in God's way, the best way of all."

He talked on for a long while in this gentle, heartfelt way, and
gradually, as the old man spoke, the bitterness and revolt died out of
the simple-minded child's heart. Hers, after all, was a simple
faith--but as firmly rooted within her as her belief in the sunshine,
the alternating days and nights, the turns of the season. And the kind
priest, who after life's vicissitudes had found anchorage in this
forlorn village in the midst of the plains, knew exactly how to deal
with these childlike souls. Like those who live their lives upon the
sea, the Hungarian peasant sees only immensity around him, and above him
that wonderful dome which hides its ineffable mysteries behind glorious
veils of sunset and sunrise, of storm and of fantastic clouds. The plain
stretches its apparently limitless expanse to a distance which he--its
child--has never reached. Untutored and unlearned, he does not know what
lies beyond that low-lying horizon into whose arms the sun sinks at
evening in a pool of fire.

Everything around him is so great, so vast, so wonderful--the rising and
setting of the sun, the stars and moon at nights, the gathering storms,
the rainfalls, the sowing of the maize and the corn, the travail of the
earth and the growing and developing of the stately heads of maize from
one tiny, dried, yellow grain--that he has no inclination for petty
casuistry, for arguments or philosophy. God's work is all that he ever
sees: the book of life and death the only one he reads.

And because of that simple faith, that sublime ignorance, Elsa found
comfort and peace in what Pater Bonifacius said. I will not say that she
ceased to regret, nor that the grief of her heart was laid low, but her
heart was soothed, and to her already heavy sorrow there was no longer
laid the additional burden of a bitter resentment.

Then for awhile after he had spoken the priest was silent. No one knew
better than he did the exact value of silence, whilst words had time to
sink in. So they both remained in the gloom side by side--he the
consoler and she the healed. The flickering candle light played curious
and fantastic tricks with their forms and faces, lighting up now and