that beautiful!"
"Yes, it is beautiful and infinitely wise and just. The week ends every
Saturday at midnight to the minute, to the second, to the last shade of
a fraction of a second, infallibly, unerringly, and in that instant the
one brother's power over the body vanishes and the other brother takes
possession, asleep or awake."
"How marvelous are His ways, and past finding out!"
Luigi said: "So exactly to the instant does the change come, that during
our stay in many of the great cities of the world, the public clocks were
regulated by it; and as hundreds of thousands of private clocks and
watches were set and corrected in accordance with the public clocks, we
really furnished the standard time for the entire city."
"Don't tell me that He don't do miracles any more! Blowing down the
walls of Jericho with rams' horns wa'n't as difficult, in my opinion."
"And that is not all," said Angelo. "A thing that is even more
marvelous, perhaps, is the fact that the change takes note of longitude
and fits itself to the meridian we are on. Luigi is in command this
week. Now, if on Saturday night at a moment before midnight we could fly
in an instant to a point fifteen degrees west of here, he would hold
possession of the power another hour, for the change observes local time
and no other."
Betsy Hale was deeply impressed, and said with solemnity:
"Patsy Cooper, for detail it lays over the Passage of the Red Sea."
"Now, I shouldn't go as far as that," said Aunt Patsy, "but if you've a
mind to say Sodom and Gomorrah, I am with you, Betsy Hale."
"I am agreeable, then, though I do think I was right, and I believe
Parson Maltby would say the same. Well, now, there's another thing.
Suppose one of you wants to borrow the legs a minute from the one that's
got them, could he let him?"
"Yes, but we hardly ever do that. There were disagreeable results,
several times, and so we very seldom ask or grant the privilege,
nowadays, and we never even think of such a thing unless the case is
extremely urgent. Besides, a week's possession at a time seems so little
that we can't bear to spare a minute of it. People who have the use of
their legs all the time never think of what a blessing it is, of course.
It never occurs to them; it's just their natural ordinary condition,
and so it does not excite them at all. But when I wake up, on Sunday
morning, and it's my week and I feel the power all through me, oh, such a
wave
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