They both laughed.
"Yes, it is true. The janitor points me out to visitors as 'under-superintendent, a philanthropist in decayed circumstances.' Perhaps it is my life-work,"—growing sad and earnest.
"If you can inoculate these infant beggars and thieves with your theory, it will be practice when you are dead."
"I think that," said Knowles, gravely, his eye kindling,—"I think that."
"As thankless a task as that of Moses," said the other, watching him curiously. "For YOU will not see the pleasant land,—YOU will not go over."
The old man's flabby face darkened.
"I know," he said.
He glanced involuntarily out at the blue, and the clear-shining, eternal stars.
"I suppose," he said, after a while, cheerfully, "I must content myself with Lois's creed, here,—'It'll come right some time.'"
Lois looked up from the saucepan she was stirring, her face growing quite red, nodding emphatically some half-dozen times.