door to door as I do crusts, and carry it to those
who need."

Long after the good friar had supped and gone, Aldebaran sat in silence.
Then crossing to the tiny casement that gave upon the street, he stood
and gazed up at the stars. Long, long he mused, fitting the friar's
lesson to his own soul's need, and when he turned away, the old
astrologer's prophecy had taken on new meaning.

"As Aldebaran the star shines in the heavens" _(no light within itself,
but borrowing from the Central Sun),_ "so Aldebaran the man might shine
among his fellows." _(Beggared of joy himself, yet flashing its
reflection athwart the lives of others._)

When next he went into the town he no longer shunned the sights that
formerly he'd passed with face averted, for well he knew that if he
would shed joy and hope on others he must go to places where they most
abound. What matter that the thought of Vesta stabbed him nigh to
madness when he looked on hearth-fires that could never blaze for him?
With courage almost more than human he put that fond ambition out of
mind as if it were another sword he'd learned to sheathe. At first it
would not stay in hiding, but flew the scabbard of his will to thrust
him sore as often as he put it from him. But after awhile he found a way
to bind it fast, and when he'd found that way it gave him victory over
all.

A little child came crying towards him in the market-place, its world a
waste of woe because the toy it cherished had been broken in its play.
Aldebaran would have turned aside on yesterday to press the barbed
thought still deeper in his heart that he had been denied the joy of
fatherhood. But now he stooped as gently as if he were the child's own
sire to wipe its tears and soothe its sobs. And when with skilful
fingers he restored the toy, the child bestowed on him a warm caress out
of its boundless store.

He passed on with his pulses strangely stirred. 'Twas but a crumb of
love the child had given, yet, as Aldebaran held it in his heart, behold
a miracle! It grew full-loaf, and he would fain divide it with all
hungering souls! So when a stone's throw farther on he met a man
well-nigh distraught from many losses, he did not say in bitterness as
once he would have done, that 'twas the common lot of mortals; to look
on him if one would know the worst that Fate can do. Nay, rather did he
speak so bravely of what might still be wrung from life though one were
maimed like he, that hope sprang up wit