feel his strength. I say this, Mary: that the boy will
never be goodish and weak: he'll be greatly good or greatly bad."

The young lady noticed how intently Starke listened; she wondered if he
had forgotten entirely his own God-sent mission, and turned baby-tender
altogether.

"What has become of your model, Mr. Starke?" she asked.

Dr. Bowdler looked up uneasily; it was a subject he never had dared to
touch.

"Andrew keeps it," said Starke, with a smile, "for the sake of old
times, side by side with his lantern, I believe."

"You never work with it?"

"No; why should I? The principle has since been made practical, as you
know, better than I could have done it. My idea was too crude, I can see
now. So I just grazed success, as one may say."

"Have you given up all hope of serving your fellows?" persisted the
lady. "You seemed to me to be the very man to lead a forlorn hope
against ignorance: are you quite content to settle down here and do
nothing?"

His color changed, but he said quietly,--

"I've learned to be humbler, maybe. It was hard learning. But," trying
to speak lightly, "when I found I was not fit to be an officer, I tried
to be as good a private as I could. Your uncle will tell you the cause
is the same."

There was a painful silence.

"I think sometimes, though," said Starke, "that God meant Jane and I
should not be useless in the world."

He put his hand almost reverently on the boy's head.

"Richard is ours, you know, to make what we will of. He will do a
different work in life from any engine. I try to think we have strength
enough saved out of our life to make him what we ought."

"You're right, Starke," said the Doctor, emphatically. "Some day, when
you and I have done with this long fight, we shall find that as many
privates as captains will have earned the cross of the Legion of Honor."

Miss Defourchet said nothing; the day did not please her. Jane, she
noticed, when evening came on, slipped up-stairs to brush her hair, and
put on a soft white shawl.

"Joseph likes to see me dress a little for the evenings," she said, with
quite a flush in her cheek.

And the young lady noticed that Starke smiled tenderly as his wife
passed him. It was so weak! in ugly, large-boned people, too.

"It does one good to go there," said the Doctor, drawing a long breath
as they drove off in the cool evening, the shadowed red of the sun
lighting up the little porch where the machinist stood with his