says we must get ourselves ready to do as _great_ work as is possible,
so that may be given us. If we do not prepare ourselves, this cannot
be. You know how Michael Angelo studied and studied there in Florence
when he was a young man; how he never spared himself, but 'toiled
tremendously,' as some one has said. And, next, we must do in the very
best way possible even the smallest thing God sees fit to give us to do,
so that we may be found worthy to do greater ones. But, Malcom, you know
all this as well or better than I do, and I know you are trying to do
these things too!" and Bettina blushed at the thought that she had been
preaching.

But Malcom laughed, and looked as if he could listen to so sweet a
preacher forever. Never were there two better comrades than he and
Bettina had been all their lives.

Barbara said little. There was a far-away look in her eyes that told of
unexpressed thought. She was pondering that which the morning had
brought; and underneath and through all was the happy knowledge that her
hero had not failed her. As usual he had committed new gifts into her
keeping. And the gentle, almost intimate, tones of his voice when he was
talking to her,--she felt it was to herself alone, though others
heard--dwelt like music in her ears.

Mr. Sumner had been calmed by the lesson of Michael Angelo's frescoes,
as he had often been before. In the presence of eternal
verities,--however they may be embodied to us,--our own private
concerns must ever grow trivial. What matters a little unrest or
disappointment, or even unhappiness, when our thought is engaged with
untold ages of God's dealing with mankind? With the wondrous fact that
God is with man,--Immanuel,--forever and forevermore?