Her thoughts were whirling in wild confusion, yet she knew that she must decide calmly, wisely, quickly. Her lips moved, but made no sound. "Oh, lay Thy wise and gracious hand upon me!" was what she breathed in silence. Then her voice sounded rich and happy and fresh, as it had always sounded for him. "His will be done. Thou comest to bid farewell to thy brothers and father?" "It may not be," he answered. "My lot henceforth is to flee the touch of the world, the unsympathetic eye, the ribald tongue of those like my brothers--the defilement of common life." The mother pressed him closer. "Say all that is in thine heart," she murmured. "We will bide here." They sank down together on the soft, bright turf, facing the brilliance of the west, she holding her child as of old in the hollow of her arm. He began to speak. "For long and long a voice within me said, 'Go and seek thy cousin.' So I sought and found, and we abode together in the woods and fields, and were friends with our dear brothers the beasts, and the fishes, and the birds. There, day by day, my cousin would tell me of the dream that filled his soul and of the holy men who had put the dream there." The mother's eyes grew larger with a swift terror, but she held her peace. "And at the last, when the beauty, the wind, the sun, the rain, and the voice of God, had purified me in some measure, my cousin brought me to visit these holy men." The clear, boyish voice rose and began to vibrate with enthusiasm. "Ah, mother, _they_ are the chosen ones of God! Sweet and grave and gentle they are, and theirs is the perfect life. They dwell spotless and apart from the world. They own one common purse, and spend their lives working with their hands and pondering and dreaming on purity, goodness, and the commands of the great law." He sprang up in his excitement from her encircling arm and stood erect and wide-eyed before her. "Ah, mother, they are so good that they would do nothing on the Sabbath, even to saving their own lives or the lives of their animals, or their brothers. They bathe very often in sacred water. They have no wives, and mortify the flesh, and--" "What is their aim in this?" the mother interrupted gently. The boy was aflame with his subject.