freak who said all sickness came from the devil. I never could
believe that, for my mother was an invalid during the last years of
her life, and I can testify that her sickness was a blessing to
many, and borne to the glory of God. But I am, convinced all true
beauty is God-given, and that is why the worship of beauty is to me
a religion. Nothing bad was ever truly beautiful; nothing good is
ever really ugly."

Jane smiled as she watched him, lying back in the golden sunlight,
the very personification of manly beauty. The absolute lack of self-
consciousness, either for himself or for her, which allowed him to
talk thus to the plainest woman of his acquaintance, held a vein of
humour which diverted Jane. It appealed to her more than buying
coloured air-balls, or screaming because the duchess wore a mushroom
hat.

"Then are plain people to be denied their share of goodness, Dal?"
she asked.

"Plainness is not ugliness," replied Garth Dalmain simply. "I
learned that when quite a small boy. My mother took me to hear a
famous preacher. As he sat on the platform during the preliminaries
he seemed to me quite the ugliest man I had ever seen. He reminded
me of a grotesque gorilla, and I dreaded the moment when he should
rise up and face us and give out a text. It seemed to me there ought
to be bars between, and that we should want to throw nuts and
oranges. But when he rose to speak, his face was transfigured.
Goodness and inspiration shone from it, making it as the face of an
angel. I never again thought him ugly. The beauty of his soul shone
through, transfiguring his body. Child though I was, I could