And the kindness that had been shown to the children of other nations, the children of other nations, in their turn showed to them. For, when the bounty of the kingdom had been exhausted, so that the last hospital stood half-raised, and Kindness called in vain upon the people to finish the home of their wasting children, a sweet-voiced bird from other lands poured forth her song, and, as the heavens rang with her melody, the building rose and rose, till it grew to be the noblest of all the noble monuments of love and kindness that graced the city.

Chapter the Tenth.

W

HEN Huan returned to the

city, multitudes flocked out to meet him, kissing the ground before him, and crying, "God speed the worker of Good!" And, while the King ad

vanced with scarce a follower in his train, Huan could not proceed for the thousands that gathered round him. And, as he heard the blessings of the people raining on his head, he wondered within himself how he, a Dwarf, armed with a simple Olive-branch, should have gained more power over men than Ulphilas with all his host.

When he was alone in his chamber, he thanked the holy Spirit of Kindness for the change she had wrought in him, and vowed never to rest so long as pain and want were in the world, or Man was at enmity with Man.

So Huan went about, comforting the poor and tending the sick, until each day the people got to love him more and more, and to call him the "Noble Worker of Good."

Now it chanced one morning, as Huan visited the hospital, he noticed, while all the sufferers he passed had some gentle friend to smooth their pillow and ease their pain, still there was one poor, stricken thing whose bedside was deserted; and, though she lay gasping with the fire of the fever, there was no one near to raise the cool cup to her burning lips.

Filled with pity for her loneliness, he asked of those around the name and history of the sufferer, but none could tell him who or what she was, for they said she had refused to answer all their questionings.

At first, Huan thought it might be his sister Anthy, who, ashamed of the name she bore, had sought to keep her misery secret from the world. But he remembered that Anthy was the favorite of the Prince, and Aleph, he said, would never leave her, for whom he had once risked his life, to die alone in such a place. And when Huan sat himself down by her side, and looked at the scarred and riddled face of the girl, his heart beat again, for he felt sure she could not be the pretty Anthy that he sought.

But, though he rejoiced at first to find another

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stricken in his sister's place, still, as he looked at the poor maid a second time, and read in her sightless eyes how bitterly she had suffered, his heart bled for her, and he vowed that he would be a friend and brother to her in her hour of trouble.

Huan tended her so kindly, and spoke to her so gently and cheeringly, that the girl soon got to love and confide in him; so that, as she grew stronger, she would raise herself on her pillow, and, turning her sightless eyes toward him, as he sat watching by her side, would tell him of the days when she was happy, and had found a friend in almost all who looked upon her. And she would wonder what those, who used to call her the brighteyed" then, would say, if they could see her now. Whereupon she would vow to herself that henceforth she would be as altered in mind as she was in body, so that none might recognize her.

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At one time she would thank God for having taken her eyes from her, saying that, "when she had them, she had used them only to look upon herself, until she got to think she was the fairest thing in all creation; whereas, now that she had lost them she knew she was the foulest. Then, at another time, she would speak to Huan of her brother, telling him how her father had so hated him for his deformity, and loved her for her beauty

that he had driven his poor boy from his house and ruined his weak girl by the vanity of his praises.

So Huan, weighing all these things together, soon got to know that the poor, disfigured object at whose bedside he watched, was the once-lovely Anthy, who, now that her loveliness had passed away, had been flung aside like a withered flower, and left without a friend to care whether she lived or died.

As he consoled her, he drew from her, little by little, the story of all her sufferings.

She told him she had fallen the victim of her vanity and Aleph's admiration; for her mother and her father, proud to find their girl loved by a Prince, had striven to fan the flame their child's beauty had kindled, leaving her alone with Aleph to listen to his flattery; until at last, she-blinded with the brilliance of the lot he promised should be hers-had left her humble roof for his splendid home. And, when her father found the girl that he had been so proud of, and, to increase whose beauty he had squandered all his earnings, had fled in dishonor from his care, his reason left him, and shortly after her mother died of grief.

Then, as she heard Huan weep aloud, she blessed him for his compassion, and went on to tell him that, "her beauty had been not only her own pest, but the pest of all around. For, to increase the charms she had been cursed with, she had asked of