heroes” would have done in a similar crisis; but what Christ, the Prince of Peace, would have done; for Ishmael knew that all these great historical warriors held the “bloody code of honor” that would oblige them to answer insult with death; but that the Saviour of the world “when reviled, reviled not again”; and that he commended all his followers to do likewise, returning “good for evil,” “blessings for cursings.”

All this was very hard to do; and the difficulty of it finally sent Ishmael to study his Bible with a new interest, to seek the mystery of the Saviour’s majestic meekness.  In the light of a new experience, he read the amazing story of the life, sufferings, and death of Christ.  Oh, nothing in the whole history of mankind could approach this, for beauty, for sublimity, and for completeness; nothing had ever so warmed, inspired, and elevated his soul as this; this was perfect; answering all the needs of his spirit.  The great heroes and sages of history might be very good and useful as examples and references in the ordinary trials and temptations of life; but only Christ could teach him how to meet the great trial from the world without, where envy and hate assailed him; or how to resist the dark temptations from the world within, in whose deep shadows rage and murder lurked!  Henceforth the Saviour became his own exemplar and the gospel his only guidebook.  Such was the manner in which Ishmael was called of the Lord.  He became proof against the most envenomed shafts of malice.  The reflection:  What would Christ have done? armed him with a sublime and invincible meekness and courage.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE DREAM AND THE AWAKENING.

  The lover is a god,—­the ground
    He treads on is not ours;
  His soul by other laws is bound,
    Sustained by other powers;
  His own and that one other heart
    Form for himself a world apart.

  —­Milnes.

Time went on.  Autumn faded into winter:  the flowers wore withered; the grass dried; the woods bare.  Miss Merlin no longer sat under the green shadows of the old elm tree; there were no green shadows there; the tree was stripped of its leaves and seemed but the skeleton of itself, and the snow lay around its foot.

The season, far from interrupting the intimacy between the heiress and her favorite, only served to draw them even more closely together.  This was the way of it.  At the noon recess all the pupils of the school would rush madly out upon the lawn to engage in the rough, healthful, and exciting game of snowballing each other—­all except Claudia, who was far too fine a lady to enter into any such rude sport, and Ishmael, whose attendance upon her own presence she would peremptorily demand.

While all the others were running over each other in their haste to get out, Claudia would pass into the empty drawing room, and seating herself in the deep easy chair, would call to her “gentleman in waiting,” saying: