so these things have happened. But now let us see what became of the third
experiment."




CHAPTER X

NOAH AGAIN


In the street of candles a woman dressed all in black had picked up the
poor old Noah's ark and was looking at it wildly. She was a widow who had
just lost her only child, a little son, and she was in a state of morbid
bitterness bordering on distraction.

When the second woman with the two little ones came up and begged for the
toy, something hard and sullen and cruel rose in the widow's heart, and she
refused angrily to give up the thing. She hated those two boys who had been
spared when her own was taken. She would not make them happy.

"No, you shall not have it," she cried, clutching the Noah's ark fiercely.
"I will destroy it."

The poor woman and the children followed her wistfully. The little boys
were crying. They were cold and hungry and disappointed. They had come so
near to something pleasant. They had almost been lucky; but the luck had
passed over their heads to another.

The woman in mourning strode on rapidly, the thoughts within her no less