restless courtship of Fortune: yet, after all, who has power with less
alloy than the village thane? With so little effort, so little thought,
the man in the manor-house can make men in the cottage happier here below
and more fit for a hereafter yonder. In leaving the world I come from
contest and pilgrimage, like our sires the Crusaders, to reign at home."

As he spoke, he entered one of the cottages. An old paralytic man was
seated by the fire, hot though the July sun was out of doors; and his
wife, of the same age, and almost as helpless, was reading to him a
chapter in the Old Testament,--the fifth chapter in Genesis, containing
the genealogy, age, and death of the patriarchs before the Flood. How
the faces of the couple brightened when Darrell entered. "Master Guy!"
said the old man, tremulously rising. The world-weary orator and lawyer
was still Master Guy to him.

"Sit down, Matthew, and let, me read you a chapter." Darrell took the
Holy Book, and read the Sermon on the Mount. Never had Lionel heard
anything like that reading; the feeling which brought out the depth of
the sense, the tones, sweeter than the flute, which clothed the divine
words in music. As Darrell ceased, some beauty seemed gone from the day.
He lingered a few minutes, talking kindly and familiarly, and then turned
into another cottage, where lay a sick woman. He listened to her
ailments, promised to send her something to do her good from his own
stores, cheered up her spirits, and, leaving her happy, turned to Lionel
with a glorious smile, that seemed to ask, "And is there not power in
this?"

Put it was the sad peculiarity of this remarkable man that all his moods
were subject to rapid and seemingly unaccountable variations. It was as
if some great blow had fallen on the mainspring of his organization, and