"Kindness is my name!" said the little housekeeper.

   "Outside it is cold and empty," said

   Love, "and the wind blows over the waste; may I come in and warm me by the fire?"

   "Oh! and welcome!" said Kindness. "It was for you I kept it."

   "My red robe is torn and draggled," said Love. "May I wrap me in the gown you are making?"

   "Oh! and welcome," said Kindness. "It is for you it was making, and now it is finished."

   Love bent over the fire and warmed his poor cold hands.

   "Oh!" he cried; "now that I am back in my house I would never leave it again. But what of my wings, lest they put the flight in me once more?"

   "Suppose I clip them," said Kindness, "with my little scissors!"

   "How are your scissors called, dear?"

   "Peace-and-Comfort is their name!" said Kindness.

   So Kindness clipped the wings of Love; and this one swept the hearth, and that one mended the fire, and all went well while they kept the house together.

   One came to Brother Barnabas seeking consolation.

   "Ah!" said the good Brother. "My heart bleeds for you. You are in affliction, bereft of some one dearer, it may be, than life itself. My sympathy—"

   "No!" said the man. "My friends, such as they are, are all living."

   "I see!" said Brother Barnabas. "Bodily pain has set its sharp tooth in you; that is indeed hard to bear. Let me—"

   "No!" said the man. "I am in good health, so far as that goes."

   "Alas!" said Brother Barnabas. "My poor brother, then it is sin that weighs upon you, the cruellest burden of all. Truly, I grieve for you."

   "What do you mean?" said the man.

   "I have never broken a commandment in my life."

 Prev. P 7/37 next