He raised eyes swimming with all his native goodness towards the wise
man, and dropped them gratefully on the infant peace-maker. Then he
turned away his head and fairly wept. The parson was right: "O ye poor,
have charity for the rich; O ye rich, respect the poor."




CHAPTER VII.

Now from that day the humble Lenny and the regal Violante became great
friends. With what pride he taught her to distinguish between celery and
weeds,--and how proud too was she when she learned that she was useful!
There is not a greater pleasure you can give children, especially female
children, than to make them feel they are already of value in the world,
and serviceable as well as protected. Weeks and months rolled away, and
Lenny still read, not only the books lent him by the doctor, but those he
bought of Mr. Sprott. As for the bombs and shells against religion which
the tinker carried in his bag, Lenny was not induced to blow himself up
with them. He had been reared from his cradle in simple love and
reverence for the Divine Father, and the tender Saviour, whose life
beyond all records of human goodness, whose death beyond all epics of
mortal heroism, no being whose infancy has been taught to supplicate the
Merciful and adore the Holy, yea, even though his later life may be
entangled amidst the thorns of some desolate pyrrhonism, can ever hear
reviled and scoffed without a shock to the conscience and a revolt of the
heart. As the deer recoils by instinct from the tiger, as the very look
of the scorpion deters you from handling it, though you never saw a
scorpion before, so the very first line in some ribald profanity on which
the tinker put his black finger made Lenny's blood run cold. Safe, too,