pecimen as I am, I should be a
hundred times worse but for the time spent in that corner. Have you
seen that picture before?"

Jill shook her head.

"No, it is not half so well-known as it deserves to be! `Christ and the
Young Ruler,' who went away sorrowful `because he had great
possessions.' It has never entered your head, I suppose, to pray to be
preserved from prosperity, or _in_ prosperity, if you like that better?
Of course not! Precious few people ever do, yet the temptations of
prosperity are fifty times more subtle, if they are less pressing, than
those of poverty. I tell you, sir, when a man is young and strong, and
feels the blood coursing in his veins, and when his balance at the
banker's allows him to do pretty well as he chooses, it is precious
difficult to realise that he needs any help, human or Divine. Even
now--selfish old beggar that I am!--I have no one's convenience but my
own to consider, and if I want a thing there's no end of a fuss if I
don't get it in the twinkling of an eye. So I keep that picture there
to remind me that my money is only lent to me to use for the good of
others. Christ, the Captain! I am here to obey His orders!"

As he spoke he lifted his hand to his brow in stiff military salute, and
over the fierce old face came the same wonderful softening which the
twins had noticed a few minutes before.

They were speechless with embarrassment, as young things often are when
a conversation suddenly takes a serious turn; but when they had taken
their leave, with many invitations to repeat their visit, the same
thought lingered in the mind of each as they made their way homeward.

"Fancy him turning out so--good!" cried Jill wonderingly. "He really
almost--preached. I _was_ surprised!"

"Humph!" returned Jack vaguely, for the figure of the old soldier
saluting his Captain had made too deep an impression on his heart to be
lightly discussed. "Christ, the Captain!" The idea appealed to his
boyish instincts, and awoke a new ambition. Hitherto he had looked upon
religion as a thing apart from his own life, the monopoly of women and
clergymen, whose business it was; now for the first time it appealed to
him as a fine and manly virtue.

Sitting by his lonely fireside, General Digby reproached himself for his
lack of influence on his new friends. He would have been a happy man if
he had known that by God's grace he had that afternoon planted a seed
for God in Jack Trevor's