e mystery which
surrounds and encloses the so curiously urgent and vivid consciousness
of the individual. He had to own, too, that there was something
inexpressibly touching in the tones of Julius March's voice as he read
of the young Galilean prophet "going about and doing good"--simple and
gracious record of human tenderness and pity, upon which, in the course
of centuries, the colossal fabric of the modern Christianity, Catholic
and Protestant, has been built up.

"'And great multitudes came to Him,'" read Julius, "'having with them
those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast
them down at Jesus' feet, and He healed them; insomuch that the
multitude marveled when they saw the dumb to speak, and the maimed to
be whole, and the lame to walk----'"

How simple it all sounded in that sweet, old-world story! And yet how
lamentably, in striving to accomplish just these same things, his own
far-reaching science failed!

"'The maimed to be whole, the lame to walk'"--involuntarily he looked
round at the boy beside him.

Richard leaned back in his stall, tired with the long day and its
varying emotions. His eyes were half closed, and his profile showed
pale as wax against the background of dark woodwork. His eyebrows were
drawn into a slight frown, and his face bore a peculiar expression of
reticence. Once he glanced up at the reader, as though on a sudden a
pleasant thought occurred to him. But the movement was a passing one.
He leaned back in his stall again and folded his arms, with a movement
of quiet pride, almost of contempt.

Later that night, as her custom was, Katherine opened the door of
Richard's room softly, and entering bent over his bed in the warm
dimness to give him a last look before going to rest herself. To-night
Dickie was awake. He put his arms round her coaxingly.

"Stay a little, mummy darling," he said. "I am not a bit sleepy. I want
to talk."

Katherine sat down on the edge of the bed. All the mass of her hair was
unbound, and fell in a cloud about her to the waist. Richard, leaning
on one elbow, gathered it together, held and kissed it. He was
possessed by the sense of his mother's great beauty. She seemed so
magnificently far removed from all that is coarse, spoiled, or
degraded. She seemed so superb, so exquisite a personage. So he gazed
at her, kissed her hair, and gently touched her arms, where the open
sleeves of her white dressing-gown left them bare, in reverenti