whatever it
may be? You at least think so!"

"Most certainly," answered Donal. "And if this be the truth, as I fully
expect it will prove, then it is well it should be found to be. But I
should have liked better it had been something we could not explain."

"I doubt if I understand you."

"Things that cannot be explained so widen the horizon around us! open
to us fresh regions for question and answer, for possibility and
delight! They are so many kernels of knowledge closed in the hard nuts
of seeming contradiction.--You know, my lady, there are stories of
certain houses being haunted by a mysterious music presaging evil to
the family?"

"I have heard of such music. But what can be the use of it?"

"I do not know. I see not the smallest use in it. If it were of use it
would surely be more common! If it were of use, why should those who
have it be of the class less favoured, so to speak, of the Lord of the
universe, and the families of his poor never have it?"

"Perhaps for the same reason that they have their other good things in
this life!" said Arctura.

"I am answered," confessed Donal, "and have no more to say. These
tales, if they require of us a belief in any special care over such
houses, as if they were more precious in the eyes of God than the
poorest cottage in the land, I cast them from me."

"But," said Arctura, in a deprecating tone, "are not those houses which
have more influence more important than the others?"

"Surely--those which have more good influence. But such are rarely the
great houses of a country. Our Lord was not an Asmonaean prince, but
the son of a humble maiden, his reputed father a working man."

"I do not see--I should like to understand how that has to do with it."

"You may be sure the Lord took the position in life in which it was
most possible to do the highest good; and without driving the
argument--for every work has its own specialty--it seems probable that
the true ends of his coming will still be better furthered from the
standpoint of humble circumstances, than from that of rank and
position."

"You always speak," said Arctura, "as if there were only the things
Jesus Christ came for to be cared about:--is there nothing but
salvation worthy a human being's regard?"

"If you give a true and large enough meaning to the word salvation, I
answer you at once, Nothing. Only in proportion as a man is saved, will
he do the work of the world aright--the whole design of wh