, Gabriel
sped home. His own hunger made his heart ache for the little dog, and when
he entered the cottage he was glad to see that his stepmother was preparing
the evening meal, while his father bent, as usual, over a shabby,
ink-stained desk, absorbed in his endless calculations.

Gabriel's elder brothers were there, too, talking and laughing in an
undertone. No one took any notice of Gabriel, whose eye fell on the dusty,
rusty book, and eagerly he picked it up, thinking to see if again he could
find the wonder of the flaming words.

As he opened it, several verses on the page before him gleamed into light.
In mute wonder he read:--

"_And I will say to my soul, 'Soul, thou hast much goods laid up for many
years; take thine ease, eat, drink, and be merry._'

"_But God said unto him, Thou fool, this night thy soul shall be required
of thee: then whose shall those things be which thou hast provided?_'

"_So is he that layeth up treasure for himself and is not rich toward
God._"

Gabriel scarcely dared to lift his eyes toward his father, much less would
he have offered to read to him again the flaming words.

All through the supper time he thought of them and kept very still, for the
others were unusually talkative, his father seeming in such excellent
spirits that Gabriel knew the figures on his desk had brought him
satisfaction.

"But if he did not oppress Mother Lemon," thought the boy, "he would be
richer toward God."

When the meal was over, Gabriel took a piece of paper and went quietly to
the back of the house where, in a box, was the refuse of the day's cooking.
He found some bones and other scraps, and, running across the fields to
Mother Lemon's, tiptoed to the low shed which held Topaz, and, finding a
wide crack, pushed the bones and scraps within.

Then he fled home and to bed, for he had always found that the earlier he
closed his eyes, the shorter was the night.

This time, however, when his sleepy lids opened, it was not to the light of
day. A candle flame wavered above him and showed the face of his
stepmother, bending down. "Gabriel, Gabriel," she whispered; then, as he
would have replied, she hushed him with her finger on her lips. "I felt
that I must warn you that your father is sorely vexed by the reproof you
gave him to-day. He will send you out into the world, and I cannot prevent
it; but in all that lies in my poor power, I will be your friend forever,
Gabriel, for you are a good boy.