or her to hurry away from the place which changed
not with her sorrow.

"Do you see our old neighbor there?" said Ayesha to her lover. "They
say she was once as beautiful as you would make me think I now am. How
lonely she must be! Let us come near and speak to her," and the lover
went gladly. Though they spoke to each other rather than to her, yet
something of the past, which never dies when love, the immortal, has
pervaded it, rose up again as she heard their voices. She smiled,
thinking of years of burning beauty.

*****

A teacher, accompanied by his disciples, was passing by the wayside
where a leper sat.

The teacher said: "Here is our brother, whom we may not touch, but he
need not be shut out from truth. We may sit down where he can listen."

He sat on the wayside near the leper, and his disciples stood around
him. He spoke words full of love, kindliness, and pity--the eternal
truths which make the soul grow full of sweetness and youth. A small,
old spot began to glow in the heart of the leper, and the tears ran down
his blighted face.

*****

All these were the deeds of Ananda the ascetic, and the Watcher who was
over him from all eternity made a great stride towards that soul.

1893

THE MIDNIGHT BLOSSOM

"Arhans are born at midnight hour, together with the holy
flower that opes and blossoms in darkness."
--From an Eastern Scripture.

We stood together at the door of our hut. We could see through the
gathering gloom where our sheep and goats were cropping the sweet grass
on the side of the hill. We were full of drowsy content as they were.
We had naught to mar our happiness, neither memory nor unrest for the
future. We lingered on while the vast twilight encircled us; we were one
with its dewy stillness. The lustre of the early stars first broke in
upon our dreaming: we looked up and around. The yellow constellations
began to sing their choral hymn together. As the night deepened they
came out swiftly from their hiding-places in depths of still and
unfathomable blue--they hung in burning clusters, they advanced in
multitudes that dazzled. The shadowy shining of night was strewn all
over with nebulous dust of silver, with long mists of gold, with jewels
of glittering green. We felt how fit a place the earth was to live on
with these nightly glories over us, with silence and coolness upon our
lawns and lakes after the consuming day. Valmika, Kedar, Ananda, and
I watched t