that he were drowned in the
depth of the sea._"

The events of the evening rose up before Livingstone--the little girl in
her red jacket, with her tear-stained face, darting a look of hate at
him; the rosy-cheeked boys shouting with glee on the hillside, stopped
in the midst of their fun, and changing suddenly to yell their cries of
hate at him; the shivering beggar asking for work,--for but five cents,
which he had withheld from him.

Livingstone shuddered. Had he done these things? Could it be possible?
Into his memory came from somewhere afar off: "_Inasmuch as ye have done
it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto
me._"

There flashed through his mind the thought, might he not retrieve
himself? Was it too late? Could he not do something for some
one?--perhaps, for some little ones?

It was like a flash of light and Livingstone was conscious of a thrill
of joy at the idea, but it faded out leaving him in blanker darkness
than before. He did not know a single child.--He knew in a vague,
impersonal way a number of children whom he had had a momentary glimpse
of occasionally at the fashionable houses which he visited; but he knew
them only as he would have known handsomely dressed dolls in show
windows. He had never thought of them as children, but only as a part of
the personal belongings of his acquaintances--much as he thought of
their bric-a-brac or their poodles. They were not like the children he
had once known. He had never seen them romp and play or heard them laugh
or shout.

He was sunk in deep darkness.

In his gloom he glanced up. His father's serene face was beaming down on
him. A speech he had heard his father make long, long ago, came back to
him: "Always be kind to children. Grown people may forget kindness, but
children will remember it. They forgive, but never forget either a
kindness or an injury."

Another speech of his father's came floating to Livingstone across the
years: "If you have made an enemy of a child, make him your friend if it
takes a year! A child's enmity is never incurred except by injustice or
meanness."

Livingstone could not but think of Clark's little girl. Might she not
help him? She would know children. But would she help him?

If she were like Clark, he reasoned, she would be kind-hearted. Besides,
he remembered to have heard his father say that children did not bear
malice: that was a growth of older minds. It was strange for Livingstone