There was no excess of sentiment in her quiet tone; and in the kiss even less of the passion of the mother than his had held of the passion of a son. The words were rather the pledge of a great friendliness; a friendliness that would outlast every trial. It was a solemn moment to Sydney; he felt as if an angel had been near.
“So now my three times because comes right, ant you take this room,” she declared.
“But it is too fine for me.”
“No. Nothing I have iss too fine for you. I want you to feel all the time that the whole world cannot give you too fine a thing. You are a man. God makes you. In his image he makes you. The best cannot be too good if—if you feel always you are a child of the Divine.”
A new light came into Sydney’s mind; the light that breaks in any soul when first it realizes its divinity, its infinity. She had awakened Sydney.
“Where does it tell that? In the Bible?”
“Yes. Ant your own soul tells you if you listen right. I will show you also where to read. But not now—to-morrow. Today we work.”
More she said as they moved Sydney’s possessions, partly in answer to his wondering questions, but more directly from her store of wisdom.
“Du sollst deinen Naechsten lieben als dich selbst,” she said musingly after a pause and did not know she was speaking in German till she saw Sydney’s look of perplexity. “Thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself,” she translated; “but if you think yourself a poor, mean creature, it iss not much goot to love somebody like yourself.”