One Day

hough the echoes of that mysterious voice still rang through all his drea

may seem-been told a word of the experience, but he was not curious. He certainly knew the world, if anyone

," he thought, remembering his own c

eyes and ears open, though it often seemed so utterly useless to do so. Sometimes he wondered

Lady Henrietta had gone down to Verdayne Place for a week, and the two men w

rrangements as made. Nothing else was expected of him for the present, but his nature had not ceased its revolt against the decree of Fate, and Paul Verdayne shared his feeling of repugnance to the utmost. Per

oy. "I don't wonder at all! The real wonder is that more of the poor slaves to royalty do n

ould be very like the Boy to do such a thing, and he sighed as he thought

r the sun, I think-you and I-but, curiously enough, we have never talked of love! Yet I feel sure that you believe in it. Don't you, Father Paul? Come now, confess! I am in a mood for sentiment to-day, and I want to hear

o certain that I

es when you are moved, in your voice when you allow yourself to become reminiscent. You are full

d end only with his own existence, but he could not tell that story to the Boy-yet! Suddenly, however, an old, half-for

t life. He told of the girl's kindness to him when he had broken his collarbone; of her assistance so freely offered to his mother; of her jolly, lively spirits, her amiable disposition and genera

hen he pictured his parting with Isabella, and when in repeating his parting words, he managed to get just

as plainl

h a love as yours could be cured me

thought, Boy-

rget, did you? Oh, it was cruel to send you away when you loved he

the best, just as your Uncle Peter now means it for t

l, Father Paul? But of cours

y, Boy-at leas

or li

-very

all. I could never love a woman small either in body or mind. I am sure I should have liked your Isabella, Father Paul. Majestic women of majestic minds

have considered Isabella Waring in any

ghly English, you know-and a fine comrade. Liked everything that I liked, as most girls at that age didn't, naturally. Of course, mother couldn't appreciate her. S

ter all. He looked out of the window. It was getting

he tones of the young enthusiast. "But yo

appealed strongly

her when you came back,

ie. She is still

ose it? Surely when you came home and they saw you had not forg

ith downcast eyes, "When I came home, Boy, I found Isabella Waring ready to marry a curate,

Father Paul! And how could he, poor man, still keep his firm, dauntless belief in the goodness and truth of human nature after

like this, and very unkind of me to ask what I should have known would cost you such p

one who can sympathize," replied Verdayne, with a

t of a tight corner. Well, she was always a good sort. She wouldn't mind being used-or even misused-to help out her "old pal" t

ng held his attention long. It seemed, like his eye, to be ro

rica, Father Paul, ha

season of keenest anguish. He had good reason to remember it-such good reason that

d satisfy him save that he must hear all about America; and so, for a full hour, as

of sand had been born a blade of grass, waving and fluttering with the joy of new birth. Oh, it is truly wonderful, Paul! Once I went there with the soil of my heart scorched as dry and lifeless as the burning sands of Sahara, but in that revelation of a new creation, some pulse within me sprang mysteriously into being again. It could neve

lla Waring had wrecked his life. Cruel, heartless Isabella! He had never e

together different beauty from that in the rest of the universe-something individual, distinctive. The seas still overflowed the land, as they had through past eternities, awaiting His touch to call into form and being the elements still sleeping beneath the water-the living representation of His thought. Suddenly stretching out His rod, He bade the waters recede-and they did so, leaving a vast extent of grassy land where the majestic waves had so lately rolled and tossed. And it i

s was the fanciful Father Pa

go there, Father

oy, som