for. If he were to invent wings, or carve a statue
that one might look at for half an hour without wanting to look at
something else, I should not be surprised. He may do some little thing
of that kind perhaps, when he has done fermenting and the sediment has
all gone to the bottom."

Gregory felt that what she said was not wholly intended as blame.

"Well, I don't know," he said sulkily; "to me he looks like a fool.
To walk about always in that dead-and-alive sort of way, muttering to
himself like an old Kaffer witchdoctor! He works hard enough, but it's
always as though he didn't know what he was doing. You don't know how he
looks to a person who sees him for the first time."

Lyndall was softly touching the little sore foot as she read, and Doss,
to show he liked it, licked her hand.

"But, Miss Lyndall," persisted Gregory, "what do you really think of
him?"

"I think," said Lyndall, "that he is like a thorn-tree, which grows
up very quietly, without any one's caring for it, and one day suddenly
breaks out into yellow blossoms."

"And what do you think I am like?" asked Gregory, hopefully.

Lyndall looked up from her book.

"Like a little tin duck floating on a dish of water, that comes after a
piece of bread stuck on a needle, and the more the needle pricks it the
more it comes on."

"Oh, you are making fun of me now, you really are!" said Gregory feeling
wretched. "You are making fun, aren't you, now?"

"Partly. It is always diverting to make comparisons."

"Yes; but you don't compare me to anything nice, and you do other
people. What is Em like, now?"

"The accompaniment of a song. She fills up the gaps in other people's
lives, and is always number two; but I think she is like many
accompaniments--a great deal better than the song she is to accompany."

"She is not half so good as you are!" said Gregory, with a burst of
uncontrollable ardour.

"She is so much better than I, that her little finger has more goodness
in it than my whole body. I hope you may not live to find out the truth
of that fact."

"You are like an angel," he said, the blood rushing to his head and
face.

"Yes, probably; angels are of many orders."

"You are the one being that I love!" said Gregory quivering. "I thought
I loved before, but I know now! Do not be angry with me. I know you
could never like me; but, if I might but always be near you to serve
you, I would be utterly, utterly happy. I would ask nothing in return!