“A bee-sting will redden the high priest’s brow.”
“Well, I’ll not sting thee. Who gave the name of the river?”
“Master, one to me alone of all the world an angel, my mother. I was born near here, and the memories of a youth made happy by one all patient, all loving, rises above and survives all changes.”
“My noble friend, forgive my repartee. I’m glad, truly, that we are so lucky as to have this knowledge.”
“Lucky? Then all is not fate; there is some chance, if no Providence?”
“Pardon more; the bee-sting is still on thy brow. Ichabod, I can not help my feelings, which sometimes make me think that only God can tread the hidden, narrow line between stern fate and happy accident. They say the Sybil wrote her prophetic decrees upon leaves and flung them recklessly to the inconstant winds. Just so we’re in decreed courses, swirled by chance gusts.”
“Yet we two are getting on well together.”
“So do chance and fate; the pity is to the waif that falls between them.”
“I wonder how here, in Holy Land, thou canst think of any control but Providence.”