For an instant there was fierce battle between the old forces and the
new. Then, with his eyes upon his father, resuming that hiss that is
proper only to ostlers, he continued his march.

He reached the wall. He caught his father's leg. He was raised on to his
father's lap, was kissed, was for a moment triumphant; then suddenly
burst into tears.

"Why, old man, what's the matter?"

But Ernest Henry could not explain. Had he but known it he had, in that
rejection of his friend, completed the first stage of his "Pilgrimage
from this world to the next."




CHAPTER III

ANGELINA


I

Angelina Braid, on the morning of her third birthday, woke very early.
It would be too much to say that she knew it was her birthday, but she
awoke, excited. She looked at the glimmering room, heard the sparrows
beyond her windows, heard the snoring of her nurse in the large bed
opposite her own, and lay very still, with her heart thumping like
anything. She made no noise, however, because it was not her way to make