“Ah, indeed; that sounds like the magnanimity of humanity, universally asserted by popular moralists. But your sex is really the least amenable, as I could easily prove to you.”
“Then prove it.”
“I will, if you can put on your hat and coat and come at once.”
“Well, I’m in a blaze of curiosity for the adventure.”
As they crossed Beacon Street a beggar boy stepped up to them, and in piping tones of want asked the lady for alms. She glanced for a moment into his face with a blank look of negation on her own, and with a sort of comprehensive intake of his dirt and rags she gathered her skirts about her and passed through the turnpike and down the steps to the Common. But her companion lingered behind, and presently joined her, half dragging the boy by his tattered sleeve.
“Come here, Miss Lorillard, and look at the boy. I want to know if this isn’t beauty?”
She turned and looked into the boy’s face, as her companion held it up to the light between his two hands. The extraordinary and perfect beauty of his features seized upon her in a sort of wonderment. Where had she ever seen such a face before?—And her memory swept through the galleries of Europe. In none of them. How was it she had not noticed it at first? The dirt? It was incomparable—it seemed superhuman in its sweetness and beauty, its appeal, and its glow of divinity. God’s hand was plainly set in that face.
“This is the boy,” said the young man, laconically, watching her expression. “Come along.”
