bring healing on its wings. "Whatever it was, and we will let
all that go, he made the _amende honorable_ the night we had tea
together up there in the great house. We took up our friendship just
where it had dropped. Men never go over those crooked and thorny steps
of the past, they have so much work to do in the present and the future.
I wanted then to make a position for him in the mill; but it was not
possible, and would not have been the part of wisdom under _any_
circumstances. Yet it seemed as if I had stepped in his place. I was
glad to hear of this other, though Fred would have been happier
elsewhere. Sylvie, I do not believe you realize what it cost him to come
back to Yerbury, to walk about, a working-man, where he had driven in
his carriage. So down at the bottom there is the temper of the real blue
steel, which _can_ bend."

"How generous you are, Jack!" There was something more than admiration
in her tone, and yet she was wondering if she could ever forgive her
fallen hero.

"See here, Sylvie, I don't mean to question any one's religion, but I've
often thought about the rejoicing up above, over the one who went
astray. I do not believe we rejoice with a very full heart: maybe we are
not heavenly enough. We can never be sure of our own strength until some
far-reaching test is applied, and yet it may not be an entirely true
test. It may quiver about the weak spot in our souls; but, while there
is any feeling, one cannot be entirely lost. That is why I say he never
forgot. And you and I ought to rejoice that he _did_ come back instead
of going off in that gloomy, diseased, Manfred style, and upbraiding the
world. 'Whatever his hand found to do'--that was one of grandmother's
texts, and he went bravely at it."

"I do believe you are a better Christian than I," she answered softly,
her eyes limpid with emotion.

"No. Perhaps not even a better friend;" and a smile played about his
mouth.

"A truer friend, a more generous one"--

"What were we talking of?" in a sudden change of tone. "Oh, the business
at Garafield's! Fred is a good deal of an artist, an intellectual artist
I should say; and, though he may not attain to fame by painting
pictures, there are many other points coming to be appreciated. He is in
the way for usefulness; and, if he wins the bays for beauty as well, I
am sure we shall all rejoice. I heard he had been designing."

"You hear every thing." Sylvie made a capricious little _moue_. He