ame was Sparrow,--the
widow Sparrow.

There was a little study, where he sat at a desk in the middle, and
could pull down any book, almost, with no more than tilting his chair;
and there was a little dining-room, and a closet with a window in it,
where his bed stood. All these rooms were lined with books, most of them
works of theology and religion, but plenty of others, too: poetry, and
romances, and plays,--he was a great reader, and his books were all the
friends he had, he used to say, till he found me. I should have been his
son, he would say; and then lay his hand on my head and bid me be good,
and say my prayers, and keep my heart true and clean. He never talked
much to me of his own church (knowing my father by name and reputation),
only made plain to me the love of God, and taught me to seek it through
loving man.

I used to wonder how he came to be there, in the wilderness, as it must
often have seemed to him, for he had travelled much, and was city-bred,
his people having left the seacoast and settled inland in his
grandfather's time. One day, as I stood by his desk waiting for him, I
saw a box that always lay there, set open; and in it was a portrait of a
most beautiful lady in a rich dress. The portrait was in a gold frame
set with red stones,--rubies, they may have been,--and was a rich jewel
indeed. While I stood looking at it, Father L'Homme-Dieu came in; and at
sight of the open box, and me looking at it, his face, that was like old
ivory in its ordinary look, flushed dark red as the stones themselves. I
was sorely vexed at myself, and frightened too, maybe; but the change
passed from him, and he spoke in his own quiet voice. "That is the first
half of my life, Jacques!" he said. "It is set in heart's blood, my
son." And told me that this was his sweetheart who was drowned at sea,
and it was after her death that he became a priest, and came to find
some few sheep in the wilderness, near the spot where his fathers had
lived. Then he bade me look well at the sweet face, and when my time
should come to love, seek out one, if not so fair (as he thought there
were none such), still one as true, and pure, and tender, and loving
once, let it last till death; and so closed the box, and I never saw it
open again.

All this time I never let my father know about Father L'Homme-Dieu. It
would have seemed to him a terrible thing that his son should be friends
with a priest of the Roman Church, which he held a thi