"Men and brothers," cried Matthew, "it is not so that it was meant. I pray you look deep within, and see how the meaning was written. Is it that you should live, each pitted against another, wounding the other, advantaging himself? Join now each his hand with that of a neighbour. _His neighbour._ Make the thing of which, it seems, the world is made; a family. Let the thing come alive which is greater than the family: the community. Oh, my comrades, let us work together for the coming of the kingdom of God." In the murmur that rose were the words which have been spoken since time began:-- "It is not so that it was done in the old time...." "It is not seemly that we change...." "If every one did this ... but we cannot do it alone." "Have you thought what will become of our business?" And again and yet again: "It is not so that it was done in the old time." And when the most would have none of it, Matthew made his way sadly through the throng--of whom were many who smiled (kindly!)--to the edge of the common, where stood a woman, trembling. "Come," he said. She went with him, and she with many little frightened breaths, but he had no pity, for he read deep within and saw that it was written that she wanted none. When they reached her own house, she would have entered. "Go we in here," she besought him, "I will show you the rooms where I go about and the lamps that I light." "We are past all that now," said Matthew, gently, "I will not go on living where you do not live." He took her to his own house, through the garden that he had planted. He made her look from his window, sit by his table, open his books; and he bade her to a little task at the cupboard and laughed for joy that she performed it. "Oh, come away," he cried. "And now we will go quickly to the New Village, that one which I have found or another, where men know all this happiness and more." But she stood there by Matthew's cupboard and shook her head. "No," she said gravely, "here we will stay, you and I, in your house. Here we will live--and it may be there is a handful of others who understand. And here we will do what we can." "But I must show you," Matthew cried, "the way the others live--the things they strive for: the following of paths to clearer spaces, the freeing of shrines." "All that," she said, "we will do here." "But," he urged, "you must see how else they do--the shell, the pretty stone, the watch, the woolly lamb on three wheels and one wheel missing...." "All that," she said, "is in my heart." Matthew looked in her face and marvelled, for he saw that beside her beauty there was her power, and to that he bowed himself as to a far voice. And again it was as when the bird was at his breast, but now he knew what this would be.