be the case. I am conscious sometimes that I lack your
power of direct appeal--your personal application of the truth. I ought
to preach the first half of the sermon--the appeal to the reason, the
head part--and ask you to conclude with the heart share--the personal
application of my cold logic."

"Let us try it," said Grace rising and much amused; "cold, Rivers! your
cold logic! There is nothing cold in all your nature. Let us go home; we
have had a good talk."

As they walked down the avenue Grace said, "What are you doing about
Lamb? Is it really wise to talk to him?"

"Just now," said the rector, "he has acquired a temporary conscience in
the shape of a congested stomach. I talked to him a little. He is
penitent, or says he is, and as his mother is sometimes absent, I have
set Billy to care for him; some one must. I have found that to keep Billy
on a job you must give him a daily allowance of chewing tobacco; that
answers."

"Bad company, Brother Rivers."

"Oh, there is no guile in Billy."

They parted at the Grey Pine gate. Rivers had innocently prepared remote
mischief, which by no possible human foresight could he have anticipated.
When, walking in the quiet of a lonely wood, a man sets his foot on a
dead branch, the far end stirs another, and the motion so transmitted
agitates a half dozen feet away the leaves of a group of ferns. The man
stops and suspects some little woodland citizen as the cause of the
unexplained movement; thus it is in the affairs of life. We do some
innocent thing and are puzzled to explain how it brings about remote
mischief.

Meanwhile an unendurable craving for drink beset the man Lamb, who was
the prey of slowly lessening delusions. Guardian Billy chewed his daily
supply of tobacco and sat at the window in the hot second-storey room
feeding Lamb with brief phrases concerning what he saw on the street.

"Oh! there go Squire's horses for exercise; Joe's on Lucy."

"Damn Lucy! Do you go to mother's room--"

"What for?"

"Oh, she keeps her money in it, and Mrs. Penhallow paid her in advance
the day she left."

"Can't do it," said Billy, who had strict orders not to leave Lamb alone.

"Oh, just look in the top drawer. She keeps a bit of money rolled up in
one of her stockings. That will get me a little whisky and you lots of
tobacco."

"Can't do it," said Billy. "Want me to steal? Won't do it."

"Then I'll get even with you some day."

Billy laughed. "Why I could lick