the servants are blushing
for the sometimes unaccountable stinginess of their unusually munificent
mistress. I shall give you "line upon line, precept upon precept, here a
little and there a little" of Aristotle upon munificence in little things
till you come up to his pagan standard. "There is a real greatness," he
says, "even in the way that some men will buy a toy to a child. Even in
the smallest matters the munificent man will act munificently!" As
Gaius, mine host, munificently did.

3. Speaking of children, what a night of entertainment good old Gaius
gave the children of the pilgrim party! "Let the boys have the crumbed
milk," he gave orders. "Butter and honey shall they eat," he exclaimed
over them as that brimming dish came up. "This was our Lord's dish when
He was a child," he said to the mother of the boys, "that He might know
to refuse the evil and to choose the good." Then they brought up a dish
of apples, and they were very good-tasted fruit. Then said Matthew, "May
we eat apples, since they were such by and with which the serpent
beguiled our first mother?" Then said Gaius,

"Apples were they by which we were beguiled,
Yet sin, not apples, hath our souls defiled.
Apples forbid, if eat, corrupt the blood.
To eat such, when commanded, does us good.
Drink of His flagons then, thou Church, His Dove,
And eat His apples who are sick of love."

Then said Matthew, "I make the scruple because I awhile since was sick
with eating of fruit." "Forbidden fruit," said the host, "will make you
sick, but not what our Lord hath tolerated." While they were thus
talking they were presented with another dish, and it was a dish of nuts.
Then said some at the table, "Nuts spoil tender teeth, especially the
teeth of children," which when Gaius heard, he said,

"Hard texts are nuts (I will not call them cheaters)
Whose shells do keep their kernels from the eaters;
Ope then the shells and you shall have the meat;
They here are brought for you to crack and eat."

Then Samuel whispered to his mother and said, "Mother, this is a very
good man's house; let us stay here a good while before we go any
farther." The which Gaius the host overhearing, said, "With a very good
will, my child."

4. Widower as old Gaius was, and never for a single hour forgot that he
was, there was a certain sweet and stately gallantry awakened in his
withered old heart at the sight of Christiana and Mercy, a