I may have had many wrong
thoughts, but I cannot have done many wrong deeds,--for my cage has
been a narrow one, and I have paced it alone. I have looked through the
bars and seen the great world of men busy and happy, but I had no part
in their doings. I have known what it was to dream of the great
passions; but since my mother kissed me before she died, no woman's
lips have pressed my cheek,--nor ever will.
----The young girl's eyes glittered with a sudden film, and almost
without a thought, but with a warm human instinct that rushed up into
her face with her heart's blood, she bent over and kissed him. It was
the sacrament that washed out the memory of long years of bitterness,
and I should hold it an unworthy thought to defend her.
The Little Gentleman repaid her with the only tear any of us ever saw
him shed.
The divinity-student rose from his place, and, turning away from the
sick man, walked to the other side of the room, where he bowed his head
and was still. All the questions he had meant to ask had faded from his
memory.
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