racked his little
soul. She had said that his mother was not his mother, and that his
father was a prince. The tidings capped the glory of an effulgent day.

When he sneaked home late Mrs. Button, who had learned how he had
misspent his time, gave him a merciless thrashing. Why should he be
trapesing about with Sunday schools, she asked, with impolite
embroidery, while his poor little brothers and sisters were crying in
the street? She would learn him to Mess about with parsons and
Sunday-school teachers. She was in process of "learning" him when Mr.
Button entered. He swore in a manner which would have turned out armies
in Flanders pallid, and kicked Paul into the scullery. There the boy
remained and went supperless to his bed of sacks, aching and tearless.
Before he slept he put his cornelian heart in his hiding-hole. What
cared he for stripes or kicks or curses with the Vision Splendid
glowing before his eyes?

CHAPTER II

FOR splenetic reasons which none but the Buttons of this world can
appreciate, Paul was forbidden, under pain of ghastly tortures, to go
near the Sunday school again, and, lest he should defy authority, he
was told off on Sunday afternoons to mind the baby, either in the
street or the scullery, according to the weather, while the other
little Buttons were not allowed to approach him. The defection of the
brilliant scholar having been brought to the vicar's notice, he
ventured to call one Saturday afternoon on the Buttons, but such was
the contumely with which he was received that the good man hastily
retreated. In lung power he was outmatched. In repartee he was
singularly outclassed. He then sent the superintendent of the school, a
man of brawn and zeal, to see what muscular Christianity could
accomplish. But muscular Christianity, losing its head, came off with a
black eye. After that the Buttons were left alone, and no friendly hand
drew Paul within the gates of his Sunday Paradise. He thought of it
with aching wistfulness. The only thing that the superintendent could
do was to give him surreptitiously a prayer-book, bidding him perfect
himself in the Catechism in view of future Confirmation. But, as
emulation of his fellows and not religious zeal was the mainspring of
Paul's enthusiasm, the pious behest was disregarded. Paul dived into
the volume occasionally, however, for intellectual entertainment.

As for the fragrant and beautiful goddess, she had disappeared into
thin air. Paul h