On this Sunday Angelique had had the misfortune to don for the first time a blue suit, with a blue velvet hat that gave a brilliant effect to her golden hair. In front of this hat, nodding with every motion of her head, was a blue and gold humming bird. She wore a cape of ermine, and her class seemed quite dazzled by her appearance. Now Mr. St. John had worked vigorously to get up his little chapel in blue and gold, gorgeous to behold; but a blue and gold teacher was something that there was no churchly precedent for—although if we look into the philosophy of the thing there may be the same sort of influence exercised over street barbarians by a prettily-dressed teacher as by a prettily-dressed church. But as Mr. St. John gazed at Angelique, and wondered whether it was quite the thing for her to look so striking, he saw a little incident that touched his heart. There was a poor, pinched, wan-visaged little girl, the smallest in the class, whose face was deformed by the scar of a fearful burn. She seemed to be in a trembling ecstacy at Angie's finery, and while she was busy with her lesson stealthily laid her thin little hand upon the ermine cape. Immediately she was sharply reproved by a coarse, strong, older sister, who had her in charge, and her hand rudely twitched back.
Angie turned with bright, astonished eyes, and seeing the little creature cowering with shame, beamed down on her a lovely smile, stooped and kissed her.
"You like it, dear?" she said frankly. "Sit up and rest your cheek on it, if you like," and Angie gathered her up to her side and went on telling of the Good Shepherd.
Arthur St. John took the whole meaning of the incident. It carried him back beyond the catacombs to something more authentic, even to Him who said, "Suffer little children to come unto me," and he felt a strange, new throb under his surplice.
The throb alarmed him to the degree that he did not look in that direction again through all the services, though he certainly did remark certain clear, bird-like tones in the chants with a singular feeling of nearness.
Just about this time, St. John, unconsciously to himself, was dealing with forces of which no previous experience of life had given him a conception. He passed out of his vestry and walked to his solitary study in a kind of maze of vague reverie, in which golden hair and hazel eyes seemed strangely blent with moral enthusiasms. "What a lovely spirit!" he thought; and he felt as if he would far rather have followed her out of the door than to have come to the cold, solitary sanctities of his own room.
Mr. St. John's study was not the sanctum of a self-indulgent, petted clergyman, but rather that of one who took life in very serious earnest. His first experience of pastoral life having been among the poor, the sight of the disabilities, wants, and dangers, the actual terrible facts of human existence, had produced the effect on him that they often do on persons of extreme sensibility and conscientiousness. He could not think of retaining for himself an indulgence or a luxury while wants so terrible stared him in the face; and his study, consequently, was furnished in the ascetic rather than the esthetic style. Its only ornaments were devotional pictures of a severe mediæval type and the books of a well-assorted library. There was no carpet; there were no lounging chairs or sofas of ease. In place was a prie dieu of approved antique pattern, on which stood two wax candles and lay his prayer-book. A crucifix of beautiful Italian workmanship stood upon it, and it was scrupulously draped with the appropriate churchly color of the season.
As we have said, this room seemed strangely lonely as he entered it. He was tired with work which had begun early in the morning, with scarce an interval of repose, and a perversely shocking idea presented itself to his mind—how pleasant it would be to be met on returning from his labors by just such a smile as he had seen beaming down on the poor little girl.
When he found himself out, and discovered that this was where his thoughts were running to, he organized a manly resistance; and recited aloud, with unction and emphasis, Moore's exquisite version of St. Jerome's opinion of what the woman should be whom a true priest might love.
"Who is the maid my spirit seeks,
Through cold reproof and slander's blight?
Has she Love's roses on her cheeks?
Is hers an eye of this world's light?
No—wan and sunk with midnight prayer
Are the pale looks of her I love;
Or if at times a light be there,
Its beam is kindled from above.