To his father, the smile was simply blinding. It was so radiant, so tender, forgiving, and altogether godlike. It condescended to his weakness and mortality, and made him feel how unworthy he was of such splendid recognition. His little son’s face glowed with a perfect consciousness of power, and yet he seemed to surrender himself with a dignified humility to this threatened infamy of corporal punishment. Moreover, it was a smile that expressed the ultimate degree of innocence. It was impossible for anyone who saw it to believe that Douglas could have sinned in perversity, or with any evil intention. And there was one other amazing peculiarity about this rare smile of Douglas’s, for it not only permeated the finer feelings of those who witnessed it, but was also reflected weakly in their faces, as the outer and larger rainbow reflects the intensified beauty of the inner. So now Mr. Owen’s smile faintly echoed his son’s. “I’m sorry, Daddy,” said Douglas confidently. And Mrs. Owen waiting outside, listening in tremulous agitation for the wail that should announce her husband’s resolution, heard no sound. And presently Douglas came out, still wearing the last pale evidences of his recent halo. “But why didn’t you?” Mrs. Owen asked her husband, when their son was out of earshot. She would have overlooked the essential omission, almost with gratitude, if she had not believed it her duty to reprove her husband’s characteristic weakness. “He--he smiled,” Mr. Owen said. “But Harold!” his wife protested. Mr. Owen wrinkled his forehead and looked exceedingly distressed. “I don’t know that I can explain,” he said. “It wasn’t an ordinary smile. I’ve never seen him do it before. I--I have never seen anything like it. I can only say that I would defy anyone to punish him when he smiled like that.” “I noticed as he came out....” began Mrs. Owen. “It was practically over then,” her husband interrupted, and added with a slightly literary turn of speech he sometimes adopted: “That was only the afterglow.” But it is worth recording that, from that time, Douglas, although he was naughty enough in other ways, never robbed the larder again. * * * * * Nine years passed before Douglas’s great gift was once more manifested. There was undoubtedly something unusually charming about the boy that protected him from punishment; and as he had been spoilt by his father at home, so was he also treated rather too leniently at school. But Dr. Watson, his headmaster, came at last to the end of his weakness. Douglas was becoming a bad influence in the school. His careless evasions of discipline set an example of insubordination that was all too readily followed by the other boys. Dr. Watson braced himself to the inevitable. In his heart he regretted the necessity, but he knew that Douglas must be sacrificed for the good of the school. He had been warned and mildly punished a hundred times. Now he must pay the full penalty.