ber Job?
Job? Aye, doubtless Jehovah was sitting at some jovial feast when he
conceived that fantasy of a drunken brain, to let Satan loose upon a
happy man. Job? His seven sons and daughters, and his cattle, and his
calves were restored unto him, but we read nothing of any compensation
made him for the jest itself. He was made to play court fool, with his
boils and his tortures and his misery, and the gods had their bit
of sport gratis. Job had his actual outlay in cattle and offspring
refunded, and that was all. Ha-ha!

Prometheus! Is it you after all that are the friend of man among the
gods? Have you indeed the power to free us all some day? When will you
come, then, to raise the great revolt?

Come, come--up with the barrow again--you see it is full.

"Father, it's dinner-time. Come along home," cries little Louise, racing
down the hill with her yellow plaits flying about her ears. But she
stops cautiously a little distance off--there is no knowing what sort of
temper father may be in.

"Thanks, little monkey. Got anything good for dinner to-day?"

"Aha! that's a secret," said the girl in a teasing voice; she was
beaming now, with delight at finding him approachable. "Catch me,
father! I can run quicker than you can!"

"I'm afraid I'm too tired just now, my little girl."

"Oh, poor papa! are you tired?" And she came up and took him by the
hand. Then she slipped her arm into his--it was just as good fun to walk
up the hill on her father's arm like a grown-up young lady.

Then came the frosts. And one morning the hilltops were turned into
leaden grey clouds from which the snow came sweeping down. Merle stood
at the window, her face grey in the clammy light. She looked down the
valley to where the mountains closed it in; it seemed still narrower
than before; one's breath came heavily, and one's mind seemed stifled
under cold damp wrappings.

Ugh! Better go out into the kitchen and set to work again--work--work
and forget.

Then one day there came a letter telling her that her mother was dead.

Chapter III

DEAR KLAUS BROCK,--

Legendary being! Cast down from Khedivial heights one day and up again
on high with Kitchener the next. But, in Heaven's name, what has taken
you to the Soudan? What made you go and risk your life at Omdurman? The
same old desperation, I suppose, that you're always complaining about.
And why, of all things, plant yourself away in an outpost on the edge
of the wilderness, t