“Don't be too hard on the monkeys, Tom!” said his wife. “You don't know what they may turn out to be, after all!” “Surely it is not too hard on the monkeys to call them monkeys!” “No; but when the monkey has already begun to be a child!” “There is the whole point! Has the monkey always begun to be a child when he gets the shape of a child?--Miss Wylder is not quite so seldom in church now, I think!” “I saw her there last Sunday. But I'm afraid she wasn't thinking much about what you were saying--she sat with such a stony look in her eyes! She did seem to come awake for one moment, though!” “Tell me.” “I could hardly take my eyes off her, my heart was so drawn to her. There was a mingling of love and daring, almost defiance, in her look, that seemed to say, 'If you are worth it--if you are worth it--then through fire and water!' All at once a flash lighted up her lovely child-face--and what do you think you were at the moment saying?--that the flower of a plant was deeper than the root of it: that was what roused her!” “And I, when I found what I had said, thought within myself what a fool I was to let out things my congregation could not possibly understand!--But to reach one is, in the end, to reach all!” “I must in honesty tell you, however,” pursued Mrs. Wingfold, “that the next minute she looked as far off as before; nor did she shine up once again that I saw.” “I will be glad, though,” said Wingfold, “because of what you tell me! It shows there is a window in her house that looks in my direction: some signal may one day catch her eye! That she has a character of her own, a real one, I strongly suspect. Her mother more than interests me. She certainly has a fine nature. How much better is a fury than a fish! You cannot be downright angry save in virtue of the love possible to you. The proper person, who always does and says the correct thing--well, I think that person is almost sure to be a liar. At the same time, the contradictions in the human individual are bewildering, even appalling!--Now I must go to my study, and think out a thing that's bothering me!--By the way,”--he always said that when he was going to make her a certain kind of present; she knew what was coming--“here's something for you--if you can read it! I had just scribbled it this morning when the young man came up. I made it last night. I was hours awake after we went to bed!” This is what he gave her:-- A SONG IN THE NIGHT. A brown bird sang on a blossomy tree, Sang in the moonshine, merrily, Three little songs, one, two, and three, A song for his wife, for himself, and me. He sang for his wife, sang low, sang high, Filling the moonlight that filled the sky, “Thee, thee, I love thee, heart alive! Thee, thee, thee, and thy round eggs five!”