LITMIR.BIZ

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was nothing worthwhile to do, and keep him from thinking how long it took orange groves to pay, and what hard luck he had always had.

      He decided at first glance that the one in the centre with the clear eyes and firm, sweet mouth was the instigator of all this bounty; and, as his eyes travelled from one face to another and came back to hers each time, he felt more sure of it. There was something frank and pleasant in her gaze. Somehow it would not do to send that girl back her things and tell her he was in no need of her charity. He liked to think she had thought of him, even though she did think of him as a poor discouraged girl or an old mammy.

      He stood the picture up against the lace of the pincushion, and forever gave up the idea of trying to send those things back.

      There seemed to be one thing more in the bottom of the box, and it was fastened inside another protecting board. He took it at last from its wrappings—a large picture, Hermann's head of Christ, framed in broad dark Flemish oak to match the tint of the etching.

      Dimly he understood who was the subject of the picture, although he had never seen it before. Silently he found a nail and drove it deep into the log of the wall. Just over the organ he hung it, without the slightest hesitation. He had recognized at once where this picture belonged, and knew that it, and not the bright rug, nor the restful couch, nor the gilded screen, nor even the organ itself, was to set the standard henceforth for his home and his life.

      He knew this all in an undertone, without its quite coming to the surface of his consciousness. He was weary by this time, with the unusual excitement of the occasion, and much bewildered. He felt like a person suddenly lifted up a little way from the earth and obliged against his will to walk along unsupported in the air.

      His mind was in a perfect whirl. He looked from one new thing to another, wondering more and more what they expected of him. The ribbons and lace of the bureau fixings worried him, and the lace collars and pincushion. What had he to do with such? Those foolish little slippers mocked him with a something that was not in his life, a something for which he was not even trying to fit himself. The organ and the books and, above all, the picture seemed to dominate him and demanded of him things which he could never give. A Sunday-school! What an absurdity! He!

      And the eyes in the picture seemed to look into his soul, and to say, all quietly enough, that He had come here now to live, to take command of his home and its occupant.

      He rebelled against it, and turned away from the picture. He seemed to hate all the things, and yet the comfort of them drew him irresistibly.

      In sheer weariness at last he put out his light, and, wrapping his old blankets about him, lay down upon the rug; for he would not disturb the couch lest the morning should dawn and his new dream of comfort look as if it had fled away. Besides, how was he ever to get it together again? And, when the morning broke and Christie awoke to the splendor of his things by daylight, the wonder of it all dawned, too, and he went about his work with the same spell still upon him.

      Now and again he would raise his eyes to the pictured Christ and drop them again, reverently. It seemed to him this morning as if that Presence were living and had come to him in spite of all his railings at fate, his bitterness and scoffing, and his reckless life. It seemed to say with that steady gaze: "What will you do with me? I am here, and you cannot get away from my drawing."

      It was not as if his life had been filled formerly with tradition and teaching; for his mother had died when he was a little fellow, and the thin-lipped, hardworking maiden aunt who had cared for him in her place, whatever religion she might have had in her heart, never thought it necessary to speak it out beyond requiring a certain amount of decorum on Sunday and regular attendance at Sunday-school.

      In Sunday-school it had been his lot to be under a good elder who read the questions from a lesson leaf and looked helplessly at the boys who were employing their time in more pleasurable things the while. The very small amount of holy things he had absorbed from his days at Sunday-schools had failed to leave him with a strong idea of the love of God or any adequate knowledge of the way to be saved.

      In later years, of course, he had listened listlessly to preaching; and, when he went to college—a small, insignificant one,—he had come in contact with religious people; but here, too, he had heard as one hears a thing in which one has not the slightest interest.

      He had gathered and held this much, that the God in whom the Christian world believed was holy and powerful, and the most of the world were culprits. Heretofore God's love had passed him by unaware.

      Now the pictured eyes of the Son of God seemed to breathe out tenderness and yearning. For the first time in his life a thought of the possibility of love between his soul and God came to him.

      His work that morning was much more complicated than usual. He wasted little time in getting breakfast. He had to dean house. He could not bear the idea that the old regime and the new should touch shoulders as they did behind that screen. So with broom and scrubbing-brush he went to work.

      He had things in pretty good shape at last, and was just coming in from giving the horse a belated breakfast when a strange impulse seized him.

      At his feet, creeping all over the white sand in delicate tracery, were wild pea blossoms, crimson, white, and pink. He had never noticed them before. What were they but weeds? But with a new insight into possibilities in art, he stooped and gathered a few of them, and, holding them awkwardly, went into the house to put them into his new vase. He felt half-ashamed of them, and held them behind him as he entered; but with the shame there mingled an eagerness to see how they would look in the vase on the "blue bureau thing."

      '"Will you walk into my parlor?'

       Said the spider to the fly,

       'Tis the prettiest little parlor

       That ever you did spy,'"

      sang out a rich tenor voice in greeting.

      "I say, Chris! What are you setting up for? What does it all mean? Ain't going to get married or nothing, are you, man? Because I'll be obliged to go to town and get my best coat out of pawn if you are." "Aw, now that is great!" drawled another voice, English in its accents. "Got anything good to dwink? Twot it out, and we'll be better able to appwetiate all this lugshuwy!"

      CHAPTER III

       “AND WHAT ARE YOU GOING TO SAY TO HER?"

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      The young man felt a rising tendency to swear. He had forgotten all about the fellows and their agreement to meet and have the day out in jollification. So great had been the spell upon him that he had forgotten to put the little feminine things away from curious eyes.

      There he stood foolishly in the middle of his own floor, a bunch of "weeds" in his hand which he had not the sense to drop, while afar the sound of a cracked church bell gave a soft reminder, which the distant popping of firecrackers at a cabin down the road confirmed, that this was Christmas Day. Christmas Day, and the face of the Christ looking down at him tenderly from his own wall.

      The oath that was rising to his lips at his foolish plight was stayed. He could not take that name in vain with those eyes upon him. The spell was not broken even yet.

      With a sudden quick settling of his lips, he threw back his head, daring in his eyes, and walked over to the glass vase to fill it with water. It was like him to brave it out and tell the whole story now that he was caught.

      He was a broad-shouldered young man, firmly knit, with a head well set on his shoulders, and but for a certain careless slouch in his gait might have been fine to look upon. His face was not handsome, but he had good brown eyes with deep hazel lights in them that kindled when he looked at you.

      His hair was red, deep and rich, and decidedly curly. His gestures were strong and regular. If there had not been a certain hardness about his face he would have been interesting, but that look made one turn away disappointed.

      His companions were both big men

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