wish passing through his mind, and then seating herself at his feet, often
with her work--which was always destined for him or for one of her absent
brothers,--now and then with the one small book that she had carried with
her, a selection of Bible stories compiled for children,--sometimes when I
saw her thus, how I wished that Lilian, too, could have seen her, and have
compared her own ideal fantasies with those young developments of the
natural heavenly Woman!

But was there nothing in that sight from which I, proud of my arid reason
even in its perplexities, might have taken lessons for myself?

On the second evening of Faber's visit I brought to him the draft of deeds
for the sale of his property. He had never been a man of business out of
his profession; he was impatient to sell his property, and disposed to
accept an offer at half its value. I insisted on taking on myself the
task of negotiator; perhaps, too, in this office I was egotistically
anxious to prove to the great physician that which he believed to be my
"hallucination" had in no way obscured my common-sense in the daily
affairs of life. So I concluded, and in a few hours, terms for his
property that were only just, but were infinitely more advantageous than
had appeared to himself to be possible. But as I approached him with the
papers, he put his finger to his lips. Amy was standing by him with her
little book in her hand, and his own Bible lay open on the table. He was
reading to her from the Sacred Volume itself, and impressing on her the
force and beauty of one of the Parables, the adaptation of which had
perplexed her; when he had done, she kissed him, bade him goodnight, and
went away to rest. Then said Faber thoughtfully, and as if to himself
more than me,--

"What a lovely bridge between old age and childhood is religion! How