bending low to sweep his lips over the rosy velvet of little Starr's cheek.
With silent tread she followed her master to the door:

"The poor wee b'y's in the far room yon," she said in a soft whisper, and
her tone implied that his duty lay next in that direction. The banker had
often noticed this gentle suggestion in the nurse's voice, it minded him
of something in his childhood and he invariably obeyed it. He might have
resented it if it had been less humble, less trustfully certain that
of course that was the thing that he meant to do next. He followed her
direction now without a word.

The boy had just fallen asleep when he entered, and lay as sweetly
beautiful as the little vivid beauty he had left in the other room. The man
of the world paused and instinctively exclaimed in wonder. He had been told
that it was a little gamin who had saved his daughter from the assassin's
bullet, but the features of this child were as delicately chiseled, his
form as finely modeled, his hair as soft and fine as any scion of a noble
house might boast. He, like the nurse, had the feeling that a young god lay
before him. It was so that Mikky always had impressed a stranger even when
his face was dirty and his feet were bare.

The man stood with bowed head and looked upon the boy to whom he felt he
owed a debt which he could never repay.

He recognized the child as a representative of that great unwashed throng
of humanity who were his natural enemies, because by their oppression and
by stepping upon their rights when it suited his convenience, he had risen
to where he now stood, and was able to maintain his position. He had no
special feeling for them, any of them, more than if they had been a pack of
wolves whose fangs he must keep clear of, and whose hides he must get as