But "Paul!" that voice creeps to me at all times, for counsel, for sympathy; comes impulsively, that is the best of it—comes ever impulsively. I do not know why I am so blessed among my fellows! Just as the lad comes to me—he, too, of the highest breeding. I never saw a look of wonder or shrinking on his face; and once, in an illness that he had he clung to me, cried for me, even above his mother.
I gave my heart to him then. When a sick child, with a mother like Vesty, turns and clings to one—well, it is like to set one up.
He quotes me, refers to me, defends me, apes all my mannerisms, and struts with them proudly as clear legal type and documentary evidence.
He has my name, Gurdon "Paul," with the rest: he is my heir. Handsome, stalwart, as our race has notably been; loving, generous, fearless, all that the world can give him will be his besides; tutors, splendors, wide, luxurious travel, the entrance to glittering courts—only, God grant that he may find just the Basin at last!—the true, the pitiful, the pure of heart: that he may come up to the stature of his father, who knew but one plain path, and that the royal one; who, in the battle with fear and death, was greater than the storm.
So, often in rich and high cathedrals with Vesty by my side, the organ has but to peal forth plaintively, and those stately, emblematic windows fade away to others, broken, swaying in the wind, and the roar of the tides comes in, and high above the great clouds pass wondrously.
And I think how the Christ, painted in purple and crimson glories in these walls, and before whose image the hosts bow down, was a poor Basin of the Basins, in His birth and in His death; who had never a sure pillow, and who minded all woes save His own.
And above the written scroll of the preacher I hear the old prophetic voice, how "not many wise men after the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called." …
Vesty walks this new way with me, that was not of her knowledge or choosing with a patience in any tedious form or imposed convention, far surpassing mine.
Then I tell her that I am only an adopted Basin, and have missed so many of the first important years of good breeding; when I was taught to be only moody, if I would, and solitary and selfish.
Then she turns the rose-color, and her eyes shine on me; and if I have been patient with some vapid visitor, uttering weary commonplaces (longing, oh how infinitely, all the while in my heart, for Captain Leezur and the log!) she comes to me afterward, and leans over me with a caress and says, "That 's a dear Basin!"