"In the evening the same call is made; the same answer; and then from the still convent on noiseless pinions these words go out through the night, and pulsate on the father's ear: 'Good night, papa! Good night, mamma! a kiss for each of you!' and then the weird instrument materializes two kisses for the father's ear. "He is a rough fellow, but he declares that since he commenced to receive those kisses, he knows that an answer to prayer is not impossible; that if that child's voice can come to him, stealing past the night patrol unheard, stealing in clear and distinct and like a benediction, while the winds and the city are roaring outside, there is nothing wonderful in believing that on the invisible wire of faith the same voice could send its music to the furthest star, and that the Great Father would bend His ear to listen." "It is a pretty story," said Brewster. "The telephone is the most poetical of inventions. There is a metallic sound to the click of the telegraph, as though its chief use was to further the work and the worry of mankind. There is something like a sob to the perfecting press, as though saddened by the very thought of the abuses it must reform. There is a something about a steam engine which reminds one of the heavy respirations of the slave, toiling on his chain, but the telephone has a voice for but one ear at a time, and when it is a voice that we love its messages come like caresses. "Not the least of its triumphs is that it has broken the silence of the convent. "At last voices from the outer world thrill through the thick walls, and the patient women who are immured there hear the good nights and the kisses which by loving lips are sent away to loving homes. How their starved hearts must be thrilled by those messages! Sometimes, too, they must realize that the course of Nature cannot be changed; that the beginning of heaven is in the love which canopies true homes on earth. But with that thought there comes another, that from the Infinite, to palace, convent and humble homes alike, celestial wires, too fine for mortal eyes to discern, stretch down, and all alike are held in one sheltering hand. Sometime all these wires will work in accord, and the good-nights and the kisses in the souls of men will materialize into harmony and fill the world with music." "That is, Brewster," said Corrigan, "supposin' the wires do not get crossed and the girls do not kiss the wrong papas." "Suppose, Brewster," said the Colonel, "that at the final concert it shall be discovered that certain gentlemen have not settled their monthly rents for a long time, and their connection has been cut off?" "There is no music where there are no ears to hear," said Wright. "What if some souls are born deaf and dumb?" "Suppose," said the Professor, "that there are souls which have no ear for music?"