“I asked him, and for reply got only this: ‘I’m Melchisedec, a priest of the wayside, seeking to win silver hands, silver feet, and crown jewels.’”
“Well, he would have frightened me, if I’d met him speaking that way and in such moods?”
“Oh, no; he was not frightful; he seemed to attract even the birds, and the ownerless curs ran to him when others spurned them. He once, when sick, told me that he came from Toul, in Lorraine, where was enshrined an image of Madonna with a silver foot. He believed that tradition, which declared that that presentment of Mary gave a sign by taking a step, on a certain time, which warned some of great impending danger, and thereupon the member was changed to the precious metal.”
“It’s a pretty story.”
“At least the lesson is honey-like. No being can strive to help another without finding the All-Shining often in his own soul. So our crowns are made.”
CHAPTER XIX.
THE QUEEN’S CHILDHOOD.
“Now raise thy view,
Unto the vision most resembling Christ’s.”