Seated on the soft moss of the cavern floor, St. Aubyn in the midst and the boy beside him, we listened to the sequel of the strange tale recounted the preceding evening by Theodor and Augustin Raoul.  And first we learnt that until the moment when his father’s shout broke upon his ear that day, Charlie St. Aubyn had remained as insensible to sound and as mute of voice as he was when his accident befell him.  Even now that the powers of hearing and of speech were restored, he articulated uncertainly and with great difficulty, leaving many words unfinished, and helping out his phrases with gesticulations and signs, his father suggesting and assisting as the narrative proceeded.  Was it the strong love in St. Aubyn’s cry that broke through the spell of disease and thrilled his child’s dulled nerves into life?  Was it the shock of an emotion coming unexpected and intense after all those dreary weeks of futile watchfulness? or was the miracle an effect of the same Divine grace which, by means of a mysterious gift, had enabled us to track and to find this obscure and unknown spot?

It matters little; the spirit of man is master of all things, and the miracles of love are myriad-fold.  For, where love abounds and is pure, the spirit of man is as the Spirit of God.

Little St. Aubyn had been saved from death, and sustained during the past three months by a creature dumb like himself,—­a large dog exactly resembling Fritz and Bruno.  This dog, he gave us to understand, came from “over the torrent,” indicating with a gesture the Arblen Valley; and, from the beginning of his troubles, had been to him like a human friend.  The fall from the hillside had not seriously injured, but only bruised and temporarily lamed the lad, and after lying for a minute or two a little stunned and giddy, he rose and with some difficulty made his way across the meadow slope on which he found himself, expecting to meet his father descending the path.  But he miscalculated its direction, and speedily discovered he had lost his way.  After waiting a long time in great suspense, and seeing no one but a few goatherds at a distance, whose attention he failed to attract, the pain of a twisted ankle, increased by continual movement, compelled him to seek a night’s shelter in the cave subsequently visited by his father at the suggestion of the peasants who assisted in the search.  These peasants were not aware that the cave was but the mouth of a vast and wandering labyrinth tunneled, partly by nature and partly by art, through the rocky heart of the mountain.  A little before sunrise, on the morning after his accident, the boy, examining with minute curiosity the picturesque grotto in which he had passed the night, discovered in its darkest corner a moss-covered stone behind which had accumulated a great quantity of weeds, ivy, and loose rubbish.  Boylike, he fell to clearing away these impedimenta and excavating the stone, until, after some industrious