'I assure you that your gallant permission is unnecessary. I am
beginning, at least, to believe that there is a Father in Heaven who
educates His children; and I have no wish to interfere with His
methods. Let my cousin go his way . . . he will learn something
which he wanted, I doubt not, on his present path, even as I shall
on mine. "Se tu segui la tua stella" is my motto. . . . Let it be
his too, wherever the star may guide him. If it be a will-o'-the-
wisp, and lead to the morass, he will only learn how to avoid
morasses better for the future.'

'Ave Maris stella! It is the star of Bethlehem which he follows . .
. the star of Mary, immaculate, all-loving!' . . . And he bowed his
head reverently. 'Would that you, too, would submit yourself to
that guidance! . . . You, too, would seem to want some loving heart
whereon to rest.' . . .

Lancelot sighed. 'I am not a child, but a man; I want not a mother
to pet, but a man to rule me.'

Slowly his companion raised his thin hand, and pointed to the
crucifix, which stood at the other end of the apartment.

'Behold him!' and he bowed his head once more . . . and Lancelot, he
knew not why, did the same . . . and yet in an instant he threw his
head up proudly, and answered with George Fox's old reply to the
Puritans,--

'I want a live Christ, not a dead one. . . . That is noble . . .
beautiful . . . it may be true. . . . But it has no message for