here, as I happen to know."

He thrust the tit-bit upon Brother Biscoe, who hesitated a moment
between hate and greed, and snatched the cutlets from him before hate
could weigh down the balance.

Brother Biscoe, clutching the transferred plate, fled ungraciously,
without a word of thanks. Nurse Branscome stayed but a moment to
thank Brother Copas for his cleverness, and hurried off with Corona
to hot-up the plate of mutton for the invalid.

They left Brother Copas eyeing his dismal pork.

"And in June, too!" he murmured. "No: a man must protect himself.
I'll have to eke out to-day on biscuits."

CHAPTER IX.

BY MERE RIVER.

Brother Bonaday's heart-attacks, sharp while they lasted, were soon
over. Towards evening he had so far recovered that the Nurse saw no
harm in his taking a short stroll, with Brother Copas for _socius_.

The two old men made their way down to the river as usual, and there
Brother Copas forced his friend to sit and rest on a bench beside the
clear-running water.

"We had better not talk," he suggested, "but just sit quiet and let
the fresh air do you good."

"But I wish to talk. I am quite strong enough."

"Talk about what?"

"About the child. . . . We must be getting her educated, I suppose."

"Why?"

Brother Bonaday, seated with palms crossed over the head of his
staff, gazed in an absent-minded way at the water-weeds trailing in
the current.

"She's an odd child; curiously shrewd in some ways and curiously
innocent in others, and for ever asking questions. She put me a
teaser yesterday. She can read pretty well, and I set her to read a
chapter of the Bible. By and by she looked up and wanted to know why
God lived apart from His wife!"

Brother Copas grunted his amusement.

"Did you tell her?"

"I invented some answer, of course. I don't believe it satisfied
her--I am not good at explanation--but she took it quietly, as if she
put it aside to think over."

"The Athanasian Creed is not easily edited for children. . . . If she
can read, the likelihood is she can also write. Does a girl need to
learn much beyond that? No, I am not jesting. It's a question upon
which I have never quite made up my mind."

"I had hoped to find you keener," said Brother Bonaday with a small
sigh. "Now I see that you will probably laugh at what I am going to
confess. . . . Last night, as I sat a while before going to bed, I
found myself hearkening for the sound of her breathin