id. "It is better so." Her eyes wandered round the
room restlessly, and then fixed upon the sleeping child, and a smile
passed over her face. She pointed to the lad.

The old man nodded. "He brought me here," he said gently. Then he got to
his feet. "You must sleep now," he added, and he gave her a cordial. "I
must go forth and save the sick."

"Is it a plague?" she asked.

He nodded. "They said you would not come to save them," she continued
reproachfully. "You came to me because I was your Carille, only for
that?"

"No, no," he answered; "I knew not who you were. I came to save a mother
to her child."

"Thank God!" she said.

With a happy smile she hid her face in the pillow. At last, leaving her
and the child asleep, old Felion went forth into the little city,
and the people flocked to him, and for many days he came and went
ceaselessly.

And once more he saved the city, and the people blessed him: and the
years go on.

THE FORGE IN THE VALLEY

He lay where he could see her working at the forge. As she worked she
sang:

"When God was making the world,
(Swift is the wind and white is the fire)
The feet of his people danced the stars;
There was laughter and swinging bells,

And clanging iron and breaking breath,
The hammers of heaven making the hills,
The vales on the anvil of God.
(Wild is the fire and low is the wind.)"

His eyes were shining, and his face had a pale radiance from the
reflected light, though he lay in the shadow where he could watch her,
while she could not see him. Now her hand was upon the bellows, and the
low, white fire seethed hungrily up, and set its teeth upon the iron
she held; now it turned the iron about upon the anvil, and the sparks
showered about her very softly and strangely. There was a cheerful
gravity in her motions, a high, fine look in her face.

They two lived alone in the solitudes of Megalon Valley.

It was night now, and the pleasant gloom of the valley was not broken
by any sound save the hum of the stream near by, and the song, and the
ringing anvil. But into the workshop came the moist, fragrant smell of
the acacia and the maple, and a long brown lizard stretched its neck
sleepily across the threshold of the door opening into the valley.

The song went on:

"When God had finished the world
(Bright was the fire and sweet was the wind)
Up from the valleys cam