form.

"Yes," I said, "I do; for I keep in the light as much as I can. Let
the old heathens count Darkness the womb of all things. I count Light
the older, from the tread of whose feet fell the first shadow--and
that was Darkness. Darkness exists but by the light, and for the
light."

"But that is all mysticism. Look about you. The dark places of the
earth are the habitations of cruelty. Men and women blaspheme God and
die. How can this then be an hour for rejoicing?"

"They are in God's hands. Take from me my rejoicing, and I am
powerless to help them. It shall not destroy the whole bright holiday
to me, that my father has given my brother a beating. It will do him
good. He needed it somehow.--He is looking after them."

Could I have spoken some of these words aloud? For the eyes of the
clergyman were fixed upon me from his corner, as if he were trying to
put off his curiosity with the sop of a probable conjecture about me.

"I fear he would think me a heathen," I said to myself. "But if ever
there was humanity in a countenance, there it is."

It grew more and more pleasant to think of the bright fire and the
cheerful room that awaited me. Nor was the idea of the table, perhaps
already beginning to glitter with crystal and silver, altogether
uninteresting to me. For I was growing hungry.

But the speed at which we were now going was quite comforting. I