The corridors of his mind echoed to the tread of hosts; he heard the rumblings of history, the songs of poets whose words are pitched to the music of the skies, and he hung word pictures which Ruskin had painted in his imagination.
Fate had waited long to give him this night. It had waited till the man was ready, then with a lavish hand the storehouses of the master intellects of the world were opened to him, for him to help himself. Nelia suddenly started up from her chair and looked around, herself the victim of her own raillery, which had grown 171 to be an understanding of the pathetic hunger of the man for these things.
It was daylight, and the flood of the sunrise was at hand.
“Parson,” she said, “do you like these things—these books?”
“Missy,” he whispered, “I could near repeat, word for word, all those things you’ve said and read to me to-night.”
“There are lots more,” she laughed. “I want to do something for your mission boat, will you let me?”
“Lawse! Yo’ve he’ped me now more’n yo’ know!”
She smiled the smile that women have had from all the ages, for she knew a thousand times more than even the Prophet.
“I’ll give you a set of all these books!” she said; “all the books that I have. Not these, my old pals—yes, these books, Mr. Rasba. If you’ll take them? I’ll get another lot down below.”
“Lawd God! Give me yo’ books!”