The Militants | Page 3

butterfly. If you kill him now you might send him backward. He might turn into what he was before--a poor little blind worm perhaps."
"Oh, my Lawd!" said Eleanor.
The Bishop was still a moment, and then repeated, quietly:
Slay not the meanest creature, lest thou slay Some humble soul upon its upward way.
"Oughtn't to talk to yourself," Eleanor shook her head disapprovingly. "'Tisn't so very polite. Is that true about the grasshopper, Bishop, or is it a whopper?"
The Bishop thought for a moment. "I don't know, Eleanor," he answered, gently.
"You don't know so very much, do you?" inquired Eleanor, not as despising but as wondering, sympathizing with ignorance.
"Very little," the Bishop agreed. "And I've tried to learn, all my life"--his gaze wandered off reflectively.
"Too bad," said Eleanor. "Maybe you'll learn some time."
"Maybe," said the Bishop and smiled, and suddenly she sprang to her feet, and shook her finger at him.
"I'm afraid," she said, "I'm very much afraid you're a naughty boy."
The Bishop looked up at the small, motherly face, bewildered. "Wh--why?" he stammered.
"Do you know what you're bein'? You're bein' late to church!"
The Bishop sprang up too, at that, and looked at his watch quickly. "Not late yet, but I'll walk along. Where are you going, waif? Aren't you in charge of anybody?"
"Huh?" inquired Eleanor, her head cocked sideways.
"Whom did you come out with?"
"Madge and Dick, but they're off there," nodding toward the wood behind them. "Madge is cryin'. She wouldn't let me pound Dick for makin' her, so I went away."
"Who is Madge?"
Eleanor, drifting beside him through the sunshine like a rose-leaf on the wind, stopped short. "Why, Bishop, don't you know even Madge? Funny Bishop! Madge is my sister--she's grown up. Dick made her cry, but I think he wasn't much naughty, 'cause she would not let me pound him. She put her arms right around him."
"Oh!" said the Bishop, and there was silence for a moment. "You mustn't tell me any more about Madge and Dick, I think, Eleanor."
"All right, my lamb!" Eleanor assented, cheerfully, and conversation flagged.
"How old are you, Eleanor Gray?"
"Six, praise de Lawd!"
The Bishop considered deeply for a moment, then his face cleared.
"'Their angels do always behold the face of my Father,'" and he smiled. "I say it too, praise the Lord that she is six."
"Madge is lots more'n that," the soft little voice, with its gay, courageous inflection, went on. "She's twenty. Isn't that old? You aren't much different of that, are you?" and the heavy, cropped, straight gold mass of her hair swung sideways as she turned her face up to scrutinize the tall Bishop.
He smiled down at her. "Only thirty years different. I'm fifty, Eleanor."
"Oh!" said Eleanor, trying to grasp the problem. Then with a sigh she gave it up, and threw herself on the strength of maturity. "Is fifty older'n twenty?" she asked.
More than once as they went side by side on the narrow foot-path across the field the Bishop put out his hand to hold the little brown one near it, but each time the child floated from his touch, and he smiled at the unconscious dignity, the womanly reserve of the frank and friendly little lady. "Thus far and no farther," he thought, with the quick perception of character that was part of his power. But the Bishop was as unconscious as the child of his own charm, of the magnetism in him that drew hearts his way. Only once had it ever failed, and that was the only time he had cared. But this time it was working fast as they walked and talked together quietly, and when they reached the open door that led from the fields into the little robing-room of Saint Peter's, Eleanor had met her Waterloo. Being six, it was easy to say so, and she did it with directness, yet without at all losing the dignity that was breeding, that had come to her from generations, and that she knew of as little as she knew the names of her bones. Three steps led to the robing-room, and Eleanor flew to the top and turned, the childish figure in its worn pink cotton dress facing the tall powerful one in sober black broadcloth.
"I love you," she said. "I'll kiss you," and the long, strong little arms were around his neck, and it seemed to the Bishop as if a kiss that had never been given came to him now from the lips of the child of the woman he had loved. As he put her down gently, from the belfry above tolled suddenly a sweet, rolling note for service.
When the Bishop came out from church the "peace that passeth understanding" was over him. The beautiful old words that to churchmen are dear as their mothers' faces, haunting as the voices that make home, held