Mr. Kincaid waited.

So she repeated it presently; for Desire never made a fuss; she was too really sensitive for that.

“’The Tenderness in the midst of the Almightiness shall feed them, and shall lead them to living fountains of water.’”

Mr. Kincaid recognized the “new word,” and his face lit up.

“‘The Lamb in the midst of the Throne,’” he said.  “Out of the Heart of God, the Christ.  Who was there before; the intent by which all things were made.  The same yesterday, and to-day, and forever; who ever liveth to make intercession for us.  Christ had to be.  The Word, full of grace, must be made flesh.  Why need people dispute about Eternity and Divinity, if they can only see that?—­Was that Mrs. Froke’s reading?”

“Yes; that was Rachel’s sermon.”

“It is an illumination.”

They walked all up Orchard Street without another word.

Then Kenneth Kincaid said,—­“Miss Desire, why won’t you come and teach in the Mission School?”

“I teach?  Why, I’ve got everything to learn!”

“But as fast as you do learn; the morsels, you know.  That is the way they are given out.  That is the wonder of the kingdom of heaven.  There is no need to go away and buy three hundred pennyworth before we begin, that every one may take a little; the bread given as the Master breaks it feeds them till they are filled; and there are baskets full of fragments to gather up.”

Kenneth Kincaid’s heart was in his Sunday work, as his sister had said.  The more gladly now, that the outward daily bread was being given.

Mr. Geoffrey,—­one of those busy men, so busy that they do promptly that which their hands find to do,—­had put Kenneth in the way of work.  It only needed a word from him, and the surveying and laying out of some new streets and avenues down there where Boston is growing so big and grand and strange, were put into his charge.  Kenneth was busy now, cheerily busy, from Monday morning to Saturday night; and restfully busy on the Sunday, straightening the paths and laying out the ways for souls to walk in.  He felt the harmony and the illustration between his week and his Sunday, and the one strengthening the other, as all true outward work does harmonize with and show forth, and help the spiritual doing.  It could not have been so with that gold work, or any little feverish hitching on to other men’s business; producing nothing, advancing nothing, only standing between to snatch what might fall, or to keep a premium for passing from hand to hand.

Our great cities are so full,—­our whole country is so overrun,—­with these officious middle-men whom the world does not truly want; chiffonniers of trade, who only pick up a living out of the great press and waste and overflow; and our boys are so eager to slip in to some such easy, ready-made opportunity,—­to get some crossing to sweep.

What will come of it all, as the pretenses multiply?  Will there be always pennies for every little broom?  Will two, and three, and six sweeps be tolerated between side and side?  By and by, I think, they will have to turn to and lay pavements.  Hard, honest work, and the day’s pay for it; that is what we have got to go back to; that and the day’s snug, patient living, which the pay achieves.