"And the Manitous told me how it had happened that Sprigg was such a bad boy; it was because his father and mother had loved him unwisely; and, as they had loved him, so had they trained him. They had made a fool of their boy by making a pet of him, as if he were a pretty little animal, and not a little human creature. They had humored his every whim, excused his every fault, until they had made him so vain, selfish and false that his heart must be made to bleed to bring him to his better self. Yes; and their hearts, too--all must be made to bleed before they could look for happy days again. "And there on the ground were the shadows of men and women, boys and girls--standing, walking or flitting about, or, all on a sudden, melting away into nothing--and never a human creature to be seen dead or alive. Sprigg's shadow was among them--and a spotted thing it was; so, indeed, were they all. How could such shadows be cast? Sprigg looked up. I tell you, he jumped! What was it he saw? Up there in the sky, where the sun ought to be, there he saw an eye--a great and terrible eye--that looked directly down on him--through him--for, though his body cast a shadow, it was no more in the light of that eye than the clearest glass. Not only through his body, but such a light it was, it shone through his very soul, and showed what a spotted thing it was--spotted all over with lies. To see that eye was to feel that it had been upon you all the days of your life. Yet, terrible as was its glance, love was in it, as well as light--love even for such as Sprigg; but that made him fear it all the more. I told Sprigg to trust the eye; and that he could not do so was because he was too bad a boy to put his trust anywhere. We are all afraid of the love which, without telling us, shows us how wicked we are.