es. Under the Rubens they lay together quite still, and soothed
almost into a dreaming slumber by the numbing narcotic of the cold.
Together they dreamed of the old glad days when they had chased each
other through the flowering grasses of the summer meadows, or sat hidden
in the tall bulrushes by the water's side, watching the boats go seaward
in the sun.

Suddenly through the darkness a great white radiance streamed through
the vastness of the aisles; the moon, that was at her height, had broken
through the clouds, the snow had ceased to fall, the light reflected
from the snow without was clear as the light of dawn. It fell through
the arches full upon the two pictures above, from which the boy on his
entrance had flung back the veil: the Elevation and the Descent of the
Cross were for one instant visible.

Nello rose to his feet and stretched his arms to them: the tears of a
passionate ecstasy glistened on the paleness of his face. "I have seen
them at last!" he cried aloud. "O God, it is enough!"

His limbs failed under him, and he sank upon his knees, still gazing
upward at the majesty that he adored. For a few brief moments the light
illumined the divine visions that had been denied to him so long,--light
clear and sweet and strong as though it streamed from the throne of
Heaven. Then suddenly it passed away: once more a great darkness covered
the face of Christ.

The arms of the boy drew close again the body of the dog. "We shall see
His face--_there_," he murmured; "and He will not part us, I think."

On the morrow, by the chancel of the cathedral, the people of Antwerp
found them both. They were both dead: the cold of the night had frozen
into stillness alike the young life and the old. When the Christmas
morning broke and the priests came to the temple, they saw them lying
thus on the stones together. Above, the veils were drawn back from the
great visions of Rubens, and the fresh rays of the sunrise touched the
thorn-crowned head of the Christ.

As the day grew on there came an old, hard-featured man who wept as
women weep. "I was cruel to the lad," he muttered, "and now I would have
made amends--yea, to the half of my substance--and he should have been
to me as a son."

There came also, as the day grew apace, a painter who had fame in the
world, and who was liberal of hand and of spirit. "I seek one who should
have had the prize yesterday had worth won," he said to the people,--"a
boy of rare promise