dressed in complete
silence.

From this his mind passed swiftly, with vivid picture-thoughts, to other
things, and with a passing shiver he remembered how the loneliness of
never being alone had eaten into him, and how everything--work, meals,
sleep, walks, leisure--was done with his "division" of twenty other boys
and under the eyes of at least two masters. The only solitude possible
was by asking for half an hour's practice in the cell-like music rooms,
and Harris smiled to himself as he recalled the zeal of his violin
studies.

Then, as the train puffed laboriously through the great pine forests
that cover these mountains with a giant carpet of velvet, he found the
pleasanter layers of memory giving up their dead, and he recalled with
admiration the kindness of the masters, whom all addressed as Brother,
and marvelled afresh at their devotion in burying themselves for years
in such a place, only to leave it, in most cases, for the still rougher
life of missionaries in the wild places of the world.

He thought once more of the still, religious atmosphere that hung over
the little forest community like a veil, barring the distressful world;
of the picturesque ceremonies at Easter, Christmas, and New Year; of the
numerous feast-days and charming little festivals. The _Beschehr-Fest_,
in particular, came back to him,--the feast of gifts at Christmas,--when
the entire community paired off and gave presents, many of which had
taken weeks to make or the savings of many days to purchase. And then he
saw the midnight ceremony in the church at New Year, with the shining
face of the _Prediger_ in the pulpit,--the village preacher who, on the
last night of the old year, saw in the empty gallery beyond the organ
loft the faces of all who were to die in the ensuing twelve months, and
who at last recognised himself among them, and, in the very middle of
his sermon, passed into a state of rapt ecstasy and burst into a torrent
of praise.

Thickly the memories crowded upon him. The picture of the small village
dreaming its unselfish life on the mountain-tops, clean, wholesome,
simple, searching vigorously for its God, and training hundreds of boys
in the grand way, rose up in his mind with all the power of an
obsession. He felt once more the old mystical enthusiasm, deeper than
the sea and more wonderful than the stars; he heard again the winds
sighing from leagues of forest over the red roofs in the moonlight; he
heard the Brot