The Little Schoolmaster Mark

he had hitherto never been; in which a luxurious suite of rooms was reserved for the Princess when she condescended to occupy them. The most easterly of the suite was a m

ood and pictures on the walls, with the centre of the room left clear. These rooms on the contrary, were full of small gilt furniture, a

must be the Count. The lady was beautiful, but with a kind of beauty strange to the boy, and her dress was more wond

"is the clown who is t

ress the boy stopped, and stood

first who came t

" he said. "He has an air of societ

t the Count with a

e improved already. When they come to Vienna you will see how fine their breeding will be thou

s was rich, but very simple; and his whole appearance and manner suggested curiously that of a man who carried no more weight than he could possibly help, who encumbered himself with nothing that he could throw aside, who offered in every

id the Princess, addressing Mark

y only

e Princess, still wit

e can speak when he thinks that w

se," said

infected with the superstitions of the past, which still linger among the coarse and ignorant peasantry. I suppose, now, this pe

blandly, "that were too gross

meless charm into her manner as she addressed the boy, from whom

us Highness,

ou have everything here that life can wish: we have nothing. You have dainty food, and fine clothes, and learning, and music, and all the fruition that your fastidious fancy craves: we are cold and hungry, and i

rincess, with scarcely less contempt than she

ose and bowed. The Princess swept to the ground before him in an elaborate curtsey, a

so strangely-assorted couple might be likely to say to each other; but the Count, misled by his desire to please the Prince, misunderstood hi

upils so that they shall be best fitted to mingle with the wor

o sit, which he did, upon the

r one to teach his children who knew the great wo

ou teach t

ies," said Mark, "of good peo

" said the Count, "t

s still love,

with an amused glance at the Prince; "all th

's face

dare say th

give till He has gratified His revenge upon His own Son? What is that God but cruel-- But I need not go on. The whole thing is nothing but a figment and a dream, hatched in the diseased fancies of half-starved monks dying by inches in caves and deserts, terrified by the ghastly visions of a ruined body and a disordered mind-men so stupid and so wicked t

the highest heaven, the next plunged into the lowest hell. For the first time in his life this latter phase was passing through Mark's mind. What had always looked to him as certain as the hills and fields, seemed, on a sudden, shrunken and vanished away. His mind felt emptied and vacant; he could not even think of God. It appeared even marvellous to hi

s at the Count with a sort of lazy dislike; as one l

o-that He of whom he speaks died broken-hearted in that despairing cry to the Father who He thought had deserted Him-tell the Count thou art still with Him! Tell him that if His mission was misconceived and perverted, it was because His spirit and method was Divine! Tell the Count that in spite of failure and despair,

came at his gesture from the sunshine in the window, he struck a small Indian gong upon

smile. Mark's face was flushed, h

the Count not unkindly,

y, "God helping me

Tutor," said the Count,

oo left