family treasures. Whence it came, we do not know. Even my mother,
familiar as she was with the minutest detail of our family history as far
back as my grandfather's time, could not tell me that; but we always
believed it to be one of the world's great pictures that by some strange
chance had come into our possession. How well I remember my keen
disappointment on learning that it was not a photograph. It took years
to convince Tim of that, and we consoled ourselves that at least it had
been drawn by one who was there. Else how could he have done it so
accurately? For the likeness of Daniel was splendid. The great prophet
of Babylon must have looked just like that. He must have sat on a
boulder in the middle of the rocky chamber, his eyes fixed on the
ceiling, one hand resting languidly on the head of a mighty lion, a
sandalled foot using another hoary mane as a footstool. There were lions
all around him, and how they loved him! You could see it in their eyes.
Tip Pulsifer once told me that Daniel had them charmed, and that he was
looking so intently at the ceiling because he was repeating over and over
again the mystic words--probably Dutch--that his grandfather had taught
him. One slip--and I should see the fiery flash return to the eyes of
the beasts! One slip--and they would be upon him! To Tip I replied that
this was preposterous, as Babylon lived before there was any Dutch, and
there being no Dutch, how could there be effective charms? Daniel was
saved by a miracle. But Tip is slow-witted. Charms were originally
called miracles, he said. The miracle was the father of the charm.
Folks would say there were no charms to-day, yet they would believe in
charms that were worked a few thousand years ago, only they called them
miracles. It was useless to argue with a thick fellow like Tip. I had
always preferred to think of Daniel stilling the wild beasts by the
grandeur of his soul, and the suggestion that I drag him from his throne,
king of men and king of beasts, and picture him playing sock-ball, doing
a double shuffle with his sandalled feet, tossing his long robe wildly