with hunger. He laid his little white face against his
sun-burned breast. He soothed him in all his suffering.

"Then there came a time when both were ill, and they begged their
wretched companions--now very few in number--to wait for them one day.
They waited two days. On the morning of the third day, they moved
softly about preparing to resume their journey. The child was sleeping
by the fire, and they would not wake him until the last moment. The
moment comes, the fire is dying--the child is dead!

"His faithful friend staggers on for a few days, then lies down in the
desert and dies. What shall be said to these two men, who through all
extremities loved and guarded this Little Child?"

* * * * *

Christine had noticed the Domine rise, and she pointedly addressed
this question to him, and he understood her wish, and lifting up his
hands and his voice, he cried out triumphantly:

"They shall be raised up with the words--'Inasmuch as ye have done it
unto the least of these, ye have done it unto Me!' These good men," he
continued, "were men of the sea, Mariners of England,

"That guard our native seas,
Whose flag has braved a thousand years,
The battle and the breeze!"

The Domine might have continued, but there was a sudden thrill of
enchanting violins, the door was flung open, and the magical notes of
a foursome reel filled the room, and set the feet of all tapping the
floor, and made all faces radiant with anticipation. The good man then
realized that it was not his hour, and he sat down, and watched the
proceedings for a few minutes. Then he saw James Ruleson take his
wife's hand, and watched their first steps in the joyous reel, and he
was satisfied. If the dancing was under Ruleson's control, he knew all
would be done decently and in order, and he went away so quietly that
his absence was not noticed for some time.

Now, if the dancing that followed was like some of our dancing of
today, I should pass it with slight notice, or it might be, with
earnest disapproval, but it was not. It was real dancing. It was not
waltzing, nor tangoing, and it was as far as possible from the
undressed posturing called classical dancing. Everyone was modestly
clothed, and had his shoes and stockings on. And naturally, and as a
matter of course, they obeyed the principle of real dancing, which is
articulation; that is, the foot strikes the ground with every accented
note of the music. T