She was back in the Violet Valley. She saw Oberon and Titania, with their most wonderful court. She heard the silver melody of countless elf-voices, she hearkened with worshipful intent to the trills and throbbings of nightingales, she knew the welcome of the flowers, the breath of a soft wind journeying over grasses; and then, through the joys of dreaming, those influences called to her--called to her pleading, to leave her wild mistaken quest in that world of dust and shadows, and return to the happiness and beauty of the old loved life.
Fairyland, in all its voices, pleaded with her earnestly; it drew her heart with its magic, and made her yearn to go back again; but--no, it should not be!
The Archdeacon went on talking. Bim was satisfied now. He lay down once more to rest.
"I will follow our host's example in telling you what I shall do. My income is a thousand a year, with a house. What do I want, even after satisfying the calls of necessary hospitality, with more than four hundred a year? I shall have to sacrifice some luxuries, true; but I shall have found a new luxury--the best of all luxuries--of knowing that through the wider use of my income, comforts--impossible before--will be enjoyed in twelve poor clergyman's homes. By giving fifty pounds annually to each of these deserving servants of the Church, I shall reduce their anxieties, insure that they and their families have a better standard of comfort, and so make these, my comrades of the cloth, better and more efficient workmen for the cause. I shall make it a condition of the gift that every one of them acts cordially with the other priests and ministers in his parish--whatever their denomination may be; because, however much we must and shall differ on points of doctrine--till the truth is found in the world invisible--we all should be soldiers under the one banner, united for the one cause, though in different regiments, to forward right, to end wrong, to raise the fallen, to fight sin, to encourage the weak, to discover and destroy those causes which, unchecked, lead to the starvation, disease and death of body, mind, and soul. For this purpose all men and women, members of the churches, and those who follow the light without belonging to any organized branch of the Church, should see in one another comrades, united for the great purpose of making the world shine with beauty, love and happiness."
Bim, tired through his past enthusiasm, had gradually sunk into slumber. He grasped the wand firmly, though he was asleep. June, on the left shoulder, was still in fairy glades. This is why the Archdeacon had become so serious, and his style and words more suited to his gaiters.
The guests still followed his speech with eagerness, and were strengthened in their new ideals and brave determinings by his bold, plain speaking. It was the strangest banquet they had ever attended, but none of them thought so; and the unconventional addresses seemed just what should have been expected.
"One more personal word in my concluding remarks. I have had many critics, who have not hesitated to say that I lived up to the meaning of my name. Perhaps I have! Perhaps they were right. But, believe me, I will study to reduce my pride. I can see now, as I never saw before, how mistaken I have been in forgetting humility. For a clergyman to be worldly is for him to be unworthy of his faith. It will be a hard battle to be rid of old habits and tendencies, the results of long custom; but I will try. I will endeavour earnestly so to act that the meanest tramp by the wayside, the poorest child, the humblest old man or old woman, may see in me one like themselves, a comrade and a helper."
He paused and remembered the peroration, laboriously prepared under the study lamp; and decided to abandon it. He ended simply.
"It is the Lord Mayor, by his happy lead and example, who has begun what I believe is to all of us a great revolution. My lords and gentlemen, I beg you to join with me in drinking his health."
They did so.