the finger tips only, without getting soiled. But little Cain's head was the fairest of all, poised on his slender white neck, that showed above the soft, unstarched collar. The boy's face was of such a rare and almost unearthly beauty, that Katharine, who was a pious soul and none too clever, often and often stood near Cain, when he was not noticing her, and gazed at him, with folded hands and open mouthed astonishment. At such times a secret shudder would pass through her spirit, and strange thoughts through her old head. Supposing that the boy, Cain, was not really a human being, supposing that--an angel was dwelling under the smith's roof, and-- When such thoughts came to Katharine, who, unlike Stephen Fausch, was a Catholic, she would cross herself. Stephen Fausch was far from regarding his boy as an angel, but when the child was not looking at him, he too would secretly marvel at his face, every feature of which was like a work of art. His mouth had kept the same shape that it had had when he was a baby; it was like a delicate flower whose calyx is just opening. His chin and nose, his cheeks and brow were very clear-cut, while his eyes were large and of a dark steel gray color. They had a strange radiance that was especially striking when the child looked up suddenly and raised his long lashes. His hair was bright golden, like his mother's, and Katharine let it grow long and hang over his shoulders. Therefore Fausch also, upon whom all beauty had its effect, often paused in his work and gloated over the child's loveliness, although he was short and abrupt with him, as with every one else, so that even their talk in the workshop was of a difficult and fragmentary sort. If the maid or any stranger came in, Fausch would speak to the boy in a harsher and more commanding tone, would push him roughly to one side and would call him by his name in a loud and purposely distinct tone. Thus he seemed to seize little Cain, as it were, in his two hands and hold him up to show him to people; "Look at him! I have branded him with the wrong and the shame that they have put upon me!" There was nothing mean or hateful in this action; he merely chose to show that he was man enough to conceal nothing of the disgrace that had been forced on him, and also to exact retribution, without asking whether others liked it or not. The boy bore this frequent change in his father's bearing, to which he had soon become accustomed, with singular ease. He never cried, but looked at Stephen sometimes, when he blustered, with big astonished eyes, and sometimes he twitched crossly away from Stephen's grasp, when the smith started to push him aside.