"Some compensation, no doubt, we shall reap from that added sense of power and wealth, which the change in the root ideas of life has brought with it for many people. Humanity has walked for centuries under the shadow of the Fall, with all that it involves. Now, a precisely opposite conception is slowly incorporating itself with all the forms of European thought. It is the disappearance--the rise--of a world. At the beginning of the century, Coleridge foresaw it. "... The transformation affects the whole of personality! The mass of men who read and think, and lead straight lives to-day, are often conscious of a dignity and range their fathers never knew. The spiritual stature of civilised man has risen--like his physical stature! We walk to-day a nobler earth. We come--not as outcasts, but as sons and freemen, into the House of God.--But all the secrets and formulae of a new mystical union have to be worked out. And so long as pain and death remain, humanity will always be at heart a mystic!" * * * * * Gradually, as the old man touched these more penetrating and personal matters, the head among the shadows had emerged. The beautiful eyes, so full--unconsciously full--of sad and torturing thought, rested upon the speaker. Friedland became sensitively conscious of them. The grey-haired scholar was in truth one of the most religious of men and optimists. The negations of his talk began to trouble him--in sight of this young grief and passion. He drew upon all that his heart could find to say of things fruitful and consoling. After the liberating joys of battle, he must needs follow the perennial human instinct and build anew the "Civitas Dei." * * * * * When Friedland and his wife were left alone, Friedland said with timidity: "Jane, I played the preacher to-night, and preaching is foolishness. But I would willingly brace that poor child's mind a little. And it seemed to me she listened." Mrs. Friedland laughed under her breath--the saddest laugh. "Do you know what the child was doing this afternoon?" "No." "She went to the Oratory--to Benediction." Friedland looked up startled--then understood--raised his hands and let them drop despairingly. CHAPTER II "Missie--are yo ben?" The outer door of Browhead Farm was pushed inwards, and old Daffady's head and face appeared. "Come in, Daffady--please come in!" Miss Fountain's tone was of the friendliest. The cow-man obeyed her. He came in, holding his battered hat in his hand. "Missie--A thowt I'd tell yo as t' rain had cleared oop--yo cud take a bit air verra weel, if yo felt to wish it."