ng to justify the
high hopes cherished for him so long. He was going to be a man after his
mother's own heart.

"Uncle," went on the Boy, wrought up to a high pitch of emotion, and
throwing himself down again at Verdayne's feet, "I feel with Louis XVI,
'I am too young to reign!' Why haven't I ever had a father to teach and
train me in the way I should go? Every boy needs a good father, princes
most of all, so much more is expected of us poor royal devils than of
more ordinary and more fortunate mortals! I know I shouldn' be
complaining like this--certainly not to you, Uncle Paul, who have been
all most fathers are to most boys! But there are times, you know, when
you persist in keeping me at arm's length as you keep everyone else!
When you put up that sign, 'Thus far and no further!' I feel myself
almost a stranger! Won't you let me come nearer? Won't you take down
that barrier between us and let me have a father--at least, in name? I'm
tired of calling you 'Uncle' who uncle never was and never could be!
You're far more of a father--really you are! Let me call you in name
what you have always been in spirit. Let me say 'Father Paul!' I like
the sound of it, don't you? 'Father Paul!'--'Father Paul!'"

Paul Verdayne felt every drop of blood leave his face. He felt as if the
Boy had inadvertently laid a cold hand upon his naked heart, chilling,
paralyzing its every beat. What did he mean? The Boy was just then
looking thoughtfully at the setting sun and did not see the change that
his words called into his companion's face--thank heaven for that!--but
what _could_ he mean?

"You can call yourself my 'Father Confessor,' you know, if you entertain
any scruples as to the propriety of a staid old bachelor's fathering a
stray young cub like me--that will make it all right, surely! You will
let me, won't you? In all the world there is no one so close to me as
you, and such dreams as I may happily bring to fulfillment will be, more
than you know, because of your guidance, your inspiration. You are the
father of my spirit, whoever may have been the father of my flesh! Let
it be hereafter, then, not 'Uncle,' but 'Father Paul'!"

And the older man, rising and standing by the Boy, threw his arm around
the young shoulders, and gazing far off to the distant west, felt
himself shaken by a strange emotion as he answered, "Yes, Boy, hereafter
let it be 'Father Paul!'"

And as the sun travelled faster and faster toward the line of its