“The passive master lent his hand
    To the vast soul that o’er him planned,

wrote our Emerson, showing he believed, as I firmly do, that we ourselves now work God’s will, as men did ages ago; that God inspires us even as he did the old Prophets.”

“I love to believe so,” said Barbara, simply.

“And,” continued Mr. Sumner, “this does not lessen any man, but rather makes him greater.  Surely God’s working through him makes him truly grander than the mere work itself ever could.”

As Malcom, Barbara, and Bettina drove homeward, their talk took a serious turn.  Malcom was deeply impressed by his uncle’s last words, which he had overheard, when taken into connection with all the preceding thoughts about Michael Angelo.  Finally he asked:—­

“And then what can a man do?  What did Michael Angelo, himself, do if, as uncle suggested, God wrought through him?”

“Oh, I know!” exclaimed Bettina, eagerly.  “I have heard papa and mamma talk about the same thing more than once, only of course Michael Angelo was not their subject.  In the first place, he must have realized that God sent him into the world to do something, and also that He had not left him alone, but was with him.  Papa always says that to realize this begins everything that is good.”

“Yes,” interrupted Barbara.  “He did feel this.  Don’t you remember that he wrote in one of his letters that we were reading in that library book the other day, ‘Make no intimacies with any one but the Almighty alone’?  I was particularly struck by it, because just before I read it, I was thinking what a lonely man he was.”

“Yes, dear, I remember.  And in the next place,” continued Bettina, “papa says we must get ourselves ready to do as great work as is possible, so that may be given us.  If we do not prepare ourselves, this cannot be.  You know how Michael Angelo studied and studied there in Florence when he was a young man; how he never spared himself, but ’toiled tremendously,’ as some one has said.  And, next, we must do in the very best way possible even the smallest thing God sees fit to give us to do, so that we may be found worthy to do greater ones.  But, Malcom, you know all this as well or better than I do, and I know you are trying to do these things too!” and Bettina blushed at the thought that she had been preaching.

But Malcom laughed, and looked as if he could listen to so sweet a preacher forever.  Never were there two better comrades than he and Bettina had been all their lives.

Barbara said little.  There was a far-away look in her eyes that told of unexpressed thought.  She was pondering that which the morning had brought; and underneath and through all was the happy knowledge that her hero had not failed her.  As usual he had committed new gifts into her keeping.  And the gentle, almost intimate, tones of his voice when he was talking to her,—­she felt it was to herself alone, though others heard—­dwelt like music in her ears.