Caleb smiled indulgently. "Wait till you've got a little lass of your own, like my Lucy Ellen, sir. Not that you'll ever have one quite as good as her, bless her! for her equal never has been seen in this world, and never will. But when you've got a little lass of your own, and know as you'd be tortured to death quite cheerful-like just to save her a minute's pain, you'll laugh at all the nonsense that's written in books, and feel you know a sight better than all of 'em put together." "I don't quite see why." "Well, you see, sir, it's like this. When the dove came back to the ark with the olive leaf in her mouth, Noah didn't begin sayin' how wonderful it was for a leaf to have grown out of nothing all of a sudden, as some folks are so fond of saying. Not he; he'd too much sense. He says to his sons, 'Look here: a leaf here means a tree somewhere, and the sooner we make for that tree the better!' And so it is with us. When we feel that all at onst there's somebody that matters more to us than ourselves, we know that this wonderful feelin' hasn't sprung out of the selfishness that filled our hearts before, but is just a leaf off a great Tree which is a shadow and resting-place for the whole world." Tremaine looked thoughtful; Caleb's childlike faith and extensive vocabulary were alike puzzles to him. He did not understand that in homes--however simple--where the Bible is studied until it becomes as household words, the children are accustomed to a "well of English undefiled"; and so, unconsciously, mould their style upon and borrow their expressions from the Book which, even when taken only from a literary standpoint, is the finest Book ever read by man. After a minute's silence he said: "I have been wondering whether it really is any pleasure to the poor to see the homes of the rich, or whether it only makes them dissatisfied. Now, what do you think, Bateson?" "Well, sir, if it makes 'em dissatisfied it didn't ought to." "Perhaps not. Still, I have a good deal of sympathy with socialism myself; and I know I should feel it very hard if I were poor, while other men, not a whit better and probably worse than myself, were rich." "And so it would be hard, sir, if this was the end of everything, and it was all haphazard, as it were; so hard that no sensible man could see it without going clean off his head altogether. But when you rightly understand as it's all the Master's doing, and that He knows what He's about a sight better than we could teach Him, it makes a wonderful difference. Whether we're rich or poor, happy or sorrowful, is His business and He can attend to that; but whether we serve Him rightly in the place where He has put us, is our business, and it'll take us all our time to look after it without trying to do His work as well." Tremaine merely smiled, and Bateson went on--