ver spared himself, but 'toiled
tremendously,' as some one has said. And, next, we must do in the very
best way possible even the smallest thing God sees fit to give us to do,
so that we may be found worthy to do greater ones. But, Malcom, you know
all this as well or better than I do, and I know you are trying to do
these things too!" and Bettina blushed at the thought that she had been
preaching.

But Malcom laughed, and looked as if he could listen to so sweet a
preacher forever. Never were there two better comrades than he and
Bettina had been all their lives.

Barbara said little. There was a far-away look in her eyes that told of
unexpressed thought. She was pondering that which the morning had
brought; and underneath and through all was the happy knowledge that her
hero had not failed her. As usual he had committed new gifts into her
keeping. And the gentle, almost intimate, tones of his voice when he was
talking to her,--she felt it was to herself alone, though others
heard--dwelt like music in her ears.

Mr. Sumner had been calmed by the lesson of Michael Angelo's frescoes,
as he had often been before. In the presence of eternal
verities,--however they may be embodied to us,--our own private
concerns must ever grow trivial. What matters a little unrest or
disappointment, or even unhappiness, when our thought is engaged with
untold ages of God's dealing with mankind? With the wondrous fact that
God is with man,--Immanuel,--forever and forevermore?

That evening he spent with the family in their pretty sitting room, and
in answer to some questions about the _Last Judgment_, talked for a few
minutes about this large fresco, which occupied seven years of Michael
Angelo's life. He told them that although it is not perhaps so great as
a work of art as the ceiling frescoes, yet because of its conception, of
the number of figures introduced, the boldness of their treatment, and
the magnificence of their drawing, it stands unrivalled. He said they
ought to study it, bit by bit, group by group, after having once learned
to understand its design.

They talked of the grim humor of the artist in giving his Belial--the
master of Hades--the face of the master of ceremonies of the chapel, who
found so much fault with his painting of nude figures.

"That was the chief feature of interest in the picture to that group of
young people who stood so long before it this morning," said Mr. Sumner.
"I often notice that the portr