for them the wrongs of their existence, not only making of their chaos a habitable cosmos, but of themselves heroic dwellers in the same.  Within the charmed circle of this their well-being, their unceasing ministrations to her wants, their thoughtfulness about her likings and dislikings, their sweetness of address, and wistful watching to discover the desire they might satisfy or the solace they could bring, seemed every moment enticing her.  They soothed the aching of her wounds, mollified with ointment the stinging rents in her wronged humanity.

At first, when she found they had no set prayers in the house, she concluded that, for all the talk of the old gnome in the garden, they were not very religious.  But by and by she began to discover that no one could tell when they might not be praying.  At the most unexpected times she would hear her host’s voice somewhere uttering tones of glad beseeching, of out-poured adoration.  One day, when she had a bad headache, the little man came into her room, and, without a word to her, kneeled by her bedside, and said, “Father, who through Thy Son knowest pain, and Who dost even now in Thyself feel the pain of this Thy child, help her to endure until Thou shall say it is enough, and send it from her.  Let it not overmaster her patience; let it not be too much for her.  What good it shall work in her, Thou, Lord, needest not that we should instruct Thee.”  Therewith he rose, and left the room.

For some weeks after, she was jealous of latent design to bring their religion to bear upon her; but perceiving not a single direct approach, not the most covert hint of attack, she became gradually convinced that they had no such intent.  Polwarth was an absolute serpent of holy wisdom, and knew that upon certain conditions of the human being the only powerful influences of religion are the all but insensible ones.  A man’s religion, he said, ought never to be held too near his neighbor.  It was like violets:  hidden in the banks, they fill the air with their scent; but if a bunch of them is held to the nose, they stop away their own sweetness.

Not unfrequently she heard one of them reading to the other, and by and by, came to join them occasionally.  Sometimes it would be a passage of the New Testament, sometimes of Shakespeare, or of this or that old English book, of which, in her so-called education, Juliet had never even heard, but of which the gatekeeper knew every landmark.  He would often stop the reading to talk, explaining and illustrating what the writer meant, in a way that filled Juliet with wonder.  “Strange!” she would say to herself; “I never thought of that!” She did not suspect that it would have been strange indeed if she had thought of it.