himself up the garden walk to his house;
went off to see that Elsley was safe; and then home, and slept like a
top; no wonder, for he would have done so the night before his
execution.

And what was little Mary doing all the while?

She had gone up to the room, after telling her father, with a kiss, not
to forget to say his prayers. And then she fed her canary bird, and made
up the Persian cat's bed; and then sat long at the open window, gazing
out over the shadow-dappled lawn, away to the poplars sleeping in the
moonlight, and the shining silent stream, and the shining silent stars,
till she seemed to become as one of them, and a quiet heaven within her
eyes took counsel with the quiet heaven above. And then she drew in
suddenly, as if stung by some random thought, and shut the window. A
picture hung over her mantelpiece--a portrait of her mother, who had
been a country beauty in her time. She glanced at it, and then at the
looking-glass. Would she have given her fifty thousand pounds to have
exchanged her face for such a face as that?

She caught up her little Thomas a Kempis, marked through and through
with lines and references, and sat and read steadfastly for an hour and
more. That was her school, as it has been the school of many a noble
soul. And, for some cause or other, that stinging thought returned no
more; and she knelt and prayed like a little child; and like a little
child slept sweetly all the night, and was away before breakfast the
next morning, after feeding the canary and the cat, to old women who
worshipped her as their ministering angel, and said, looking after her:
"That dear Miss Mary, pity she is so plain! Such a match as she might
have made! But she'll be handsome enough, when she is a blessed angel in
heaven."

Ah, true sisters of mercy, whom the world sneers at as "old maids," if
you pour out on cats and dogs and parrots, a little of the love which is
yearning to spend itself on children of your own flesh and blood! As
long as such as you walk this lower world, one needs no Butler's Analogy
to prove to us that there is another world, where such as you will have
a fuller and a fairer (I dare not say a juster) portion.

* * * * *

Next morning Mark started with Tom to call on Elsley, chatting and
puffing all the way.

"I'll butter him, trust me. Nothing comforts a poor beggar like a bit of
praise when he's down; and all fellows that take to writing are as