She added that last line herself, she was so frightened He might be hurrying off somewhere else and think she only meant it a good three-quarters instead of a brimming-over whole. But during the prayer Virginius had drawn very near, and just before the ending he placed his hand upon the kneeler’s head and Deborah felt a sudden thrill of pure happiness run through her. Scarcely, however, had his hand touched her head than Plucritus with his free hand tried to wrench it off, and not only tried but succeeded, and a feeling of intense misery followed the thrill of joy. “It is because I love him so, and I dread the thought that he should ever die,” she said; and then she prayed it all over again still more fervently. “God is love, and God is good,” she said. “And He loves father because he’s good too, and so He’ll look after him real well,” and then she got up feeling very comforted. Plucritus turned to Genius. “How did I manage it?” he asked. “I suppose I need not tell you,” Genius answered. “Ah! what have you done?” “You should have been watching,” said Plucritus. “You are just too late.” Once more he had turned the curious dull red light upon the picture, and changed it by this glamour till it seemed almost life-size. And Deborah, led by what she did not understand, looked across at it. It had been put there for the first time that day, and was a simple representation of a wooded terrace and a garden. On the broad steps a woman stood, upon the ground a man—dressed for a period some three hundred years ago. Deborah looked and looked again, and then with a sudden start, the colour rising to her cheeks and the light to her eyes, she walked across to it. “How funny! How very funny!” she exclaimed, and looked at the picture for a long time without speaking. Then she looked at the words underneath it, and they were:— “Against my wish I am sent to bid you come to dinner.” “Fair Beatrice, I thank you for your pains.” “I took no more pains for those thanks than you took pains to thank me.” “How curious,” said Deborah. “I suppose these words are what they’re saying to each other. How beautiful they look! Just like the people in my world.” Then hearing someone calling she put the light low and got into bed. Deborah, once in bed, was happy. The day was over and done; that long, half-miserable day in which you were never sure from one minute to the next whether you were going to be punished for some offence you hadn’t done. For then it was that Genius, taking the child in his arms, showed her all those pictures and scenes that she so loved. From this earth she flew away to another just as real, where the people lived and talked like us; only not quite like the people she met every day, as Deborah’s life was bound up in the church-school walls and the poverty-stricken home. Indeed she loved the other world far more passionately and clung to it far more faithfully than ever she loved or clung to this.