Now Hall had doubtless many virtues. One of them was docking us boys of our due allowance of sugar. But she had also many prejudices. And, of all her prejudices, none was stronger than her abhorrence of idols, as exemplified in carved images and Chinese gods. "Do you see that, Master Ludlow?" she whispered to me, pointing her finger straight at the little cross of gold. "It's no better than a relict of paganism." Stooping down, she gently drew the cross out of Van Rheyn's hot clasped hand, and let it lie on the sheet. A beautiful little cross; the face of our Saviour--an exquisite face in its expression of suffering and patient humility--one that you might have gazed upon and been the better for. How they could have so perfectly carved a thing so small I knew not. "He must be one of them worshipping Romanics," said Hall, with horror, snatching her fingers from the cross as if she thought it would give her the ague. "Or else a pagan." And the two were no doubt alike in Hall's mind. "And he goes every week and says his commandments in class here, standing up before all the school! I wonder what the doctor----" Hall cut short her complaints. Van Rheyn had suddenly opened his eyes, and was looking up at us. "I find myself better," he said, with a smile. "The pain has nearly departed." "We wasn't thinking of pains and headaches, Master Van Rheyn, but of _this_," said Hall, resentfully, taking the spoon out of the saucer, and holding it within an inch of the gold cross. Van Rheyn raised his head from the pillow to look. "Oh, it is my little cross!" he said, holding it out to our view as far as the ribbon allowed, and speaking with perfect ease and unconcern. "Is it not beautiful?" "Very," I said, stooping over it. "Be you of the Romanic sex?" demanded Hall of Van Rheyn. "Am I---- What is it Mrs. Hall would ask?" he broke off to question me, in the midst of my burst of laughter. "She asks if you are a Roman Catholic, Van Rheyn." "But no. Why you think that?" he added to her. "My father is a Roman Catholic: I am a Protestant, like my mother." "Then why on earth, sir, do you wear such a idol as that?" returned Hall. "This? Oh, it is nothing! it is not an idol. It does me good." "Good!" fiercely repeated Hall. "Does you good to wear a brazen image next the skin!--right under the flannel waistcoat. I wonder what the school will come to next?" "Why should I not wear it?" said Van Rheyn. "What harm does it do me, this? It was my poor Aunt Annette's. The last time we went to the Aunt Claribelle's to see her, when the hope of her was gone, she put the cross into my hand, and bade me keep it for her sake." "I tell you, Master Van Rheyn, it's just a brazen image," persisted Hall. "It is a keepsake," dissented Van Rheyn. "I showed it to Monsieur Mons one day when he was calling on mamma, and told him it was a gift to me of the poor Tante Annette. Monsieur Mons thought it very pretty, and said it would remind me of the great Sacrifice."