verything to its
own level, casts the mantle of its own radiance around its surroundings.
Still, to the eye of love and reverence it was not pleasant to see him
in such _entourage_, and now that Clementina was going to leave him, the
ministering spirit that dwelt in the woman was troubled.

"Ah!" he said, and rose as she entered, "this is then the angel of my
deliverance!" But with such a smile he did not look as if he had much to
be delivered from. "You see," he went on, "old man as I am, and
peaceful, the summer will lay hold upon me. She stretches out a long arm
into this desert of houses and stones, and sets me longing after the
green fields and the living air--it seems dead here--and the face of
God, as much as one may behold of the Infinite through the revealing
veil of earth and sky and sea. Shall I confess my weakness, my poverty
of spirit, my covetousness after the visual? I was even getting a little
tired of that glorious God-and-man lover, Saul of Tarsus: no, not of
him, never of _him_, only of his shadow in his words. Yet perhaps--yes,
I think so--it is God alone of whom a man can never get tired. Well, no
matter: tired I was, when lo! here comes my pupil, with more of God in
her face than all the worlds and their skies He ever made."

"I would my heart were as full of Him too, then, sir," answered
Clementina. "But if I am anything of a comfort to you, I am more than
glad; therefore the more sorry to tell you that I am going to leave you,
though for a little while only, I trust."

"You do not take me by surprise, my lady. I have of course been looking
forward for some time to my loss and your gain. The world is full of
little deaths--deaths of all sorts and sizes, rather let me say. For
this one I was prepared. The good summer-land calls you to its bosom,
and you must go."

"Come with me," cried Clementina, her eyes eager with the light of the
sudden thought, while her heart reproached her grievously that only now
first had it come to her.

"A man must not leave the most irksome work for the most peaceful
pleasure," answered the schoolmaster. "I am able to live--yes, and do my
work--without you, my lady," he added with a smile, "though I shall miss
you sorely."

"But you do not know where I want you to come," she said.

"What difference can that make, my lady, except indeed in the amount of
pleasure to be refused, seeing this is not a matter of choice? I must be
with the children whom I have engaged