the
astonishing young woman with the red hair declaimed the 'Confiteor'
vigorously and with a resonant distinctness of enunciation. It was a
different Latin, harsher and more sonorous; and while it still
dominated the murmured undertone of the other's prayers the last
moment came.

Theron had stood face to face with death at many other bed-sides; no
other final scene had stirred him like this. It must have been the
girl's Latin chant, with its clanging reiteration of the great
names,--'beatum Michaelem Archangelum,' 'beatum Joannem Baptistam,'
'sanctos Apostolos Petrum et Paulum,'--invoked with such proud
confidence in this squalid little shanty, which so strangely affected
him.

He came out with the others at last,--the candles and the folded hands
over the crucifix left behind,--and walked as one in a dream. Even by
the time that he had gained the outer doorway, and stood blinking at
the bright light and filling his lungs with honest air once more, it
had begun to seem incredible to him that he had seen and done all
this.

EDWARD AUGUSTUS FREEMAN

(1823-1892)

BY JOHN BACH McMASTER

[Illustration: EDWARD A. FREEMAN]

Edward Augustus Freeman, one of the most prolific of recent English
historians, was born at Harborne in Staffordshire, England, on August
2d, 1823. His early education was received at home and in private
schools, from which at the age of eighteen he went up to Oxford, where
he was elected a scholar of Trinity College. Four years later (1845)
he took his degree and was elected a Fellow of Trinity, an honor which
he held till his marriage in 1847 forced him to relinquish it.

Long before this event, Freeman was deep in historical study. His
fortune was easy. The injunction that he should eat bread in the sweat
of his face had not been laid on him. His time was his own, and was
devoted with characteristic zeal and energy to labor in the field of
history, which in the course of fifty years was made to yield him a
goodly crop.

Year after year he poured forth a steady stream of Essays, Thoughts,
Remarks, Suggestions, Lectures, Short Histories on matters of current
interest, little monographs on great events or great men,--all
covering a range of subjects which bear evidence to most astonishing
versatility and learning. Sometimes his topic was a cathedral church,
as that of Wells or Leominster Priory; or a cathedral city, as Ely or
Norwich. At others it was a grave historical theme, as th