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Page 26
Deep is the bog in which they sink
Who ne'er on others' sorrow think;
Deeper the joy in which they rest
Who 've served the weary and distressed.
And, sure enough, he felt so happy he could have sung aloud in spite of
his weariness and fatigue.
But I could not begin to tell you of all his experiences, nor how
unfailingly his little rule helped him to meet them successfully.
He thought a great deal about it and its magical power; but once or
twice he did get to wondering why it should point to the straight path
when the winding one was so much the prettier to see.
"Are the right ways always the ones we should n't take if we had our
own way?" he thought. "Why is it that the right one always seems not
so pretty as the other? Seems to me some one told me once that the
curved lines were 'the lines of beauty.'" But before he had time
fairly to consider the subject, his rule, which he happened to be
holding in his hand, showed him this little verse,--
"Straight is the line of duty,
Curved is the line of beauty;
Follow th' one and thou shalt see
The other ever following thee."
And this was always the way. Whenever Lionel was puzzled about
anything, his rule always made it clear to him. And by and by, after
he had met with all sorts of adventures, he began to wonder whether he
was ever going to see the beggar again or reach his wonderful estate.
It was on a very beautiful day that he wondered this, and he was more
than a little happy because he had just been applying his rule to
unusually good effect, when, lo! there beside him stood the subject of
his thoughts. But oh! how changed he was!
Every rag upon him glowed and shimmered with a wondrous lustre, and the
staff he carried blazed with light, while the basket upon his arm
overflowed with the most beautiful blessings.
"I thought," said the new-comer, "that I might risk giving you this
encouragement. It will not make you content to go no farther on _now_.
It will make you long to strive for greater good ahead. You will not
reach it until you have travelled a lifetime; but you will not despair,
for you are being so blessed. I have been permitted to give you a
great gift. It is for that I was begging you that day. See, what a
privilege it is to be able to beg so--"
"Oh, yes," cried Lionel; "you were going to beg me to accept the little
rule, were n't you? And you left it for me when you disappeared, and
it is a beauty, and it is gold, and it does strange, wonderful things
for me, and--and--" In his enthusiasm he drew it from his breast and
held it up, when, lo! it curved about his hand until it formed a
perfect, beautiful circle. From its shining rim shot up points of
radiance, and it was no more a simple little rule, but a golden crown
fit for a king to wear.
Lionel gazed at it in mute wonderment, and the beggar put out his hand
and touched it lovingly.
"When your journey is done you shall wear it, lad," he said; and then
Lionel closed his eyes for very ecstasy, and then--
But when extraordinary things are just on the point of getting _too_
extraordinary, they are sure to meet with some sort of an interruption,
and after that they are quite ordinary and every-day again. So when
Lionel opened his eyes there he was curled up in the chair by the
drawing-room window, and it had grown very dark and must have been
late, for one of the maids was tripping softly about the room, lighting
the lamps and singing as she did it.
MARIE AND THE MEADOW-BROOK.
A little maid sat sadly weeping while the sunbeams played merrily at
hide-and-seek with the shadows that the great oak branches cast on the
ground; while the warm summer wind sang softly to itself as it passed,
and the blue sky had not even a white cloud with which to hide the sad
sight from its eyes.
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