Painted Shadows

iously settle down to the King's business of reaching the next market-town. It lacked an hour of midnight, and, for some long time before, the moon had been aware of the noise of altercation inside that lonely house. A stern voice, heated, one might surmise, not only with anger but also with wine, had been mightily pounding at a boyish voice of much sweetness, which was occasionally able to interject a pleading sentence here and there into the thunder-cloud of the darker voice. Suddenly the door of the cottage flashed open, and a frail, boyish figure was hurled into the garden, and the door shut again. Almost immediately it was again opened, and an object which the poorejected one eagerly recognized as his lute was thrown after him. " Take your toy with you! " said the voice, " and never let me see either of you again." The lad seized his lute with loving anxiety, and stood up in the light of the moon to examine it ? lest it should have suffered hurt. It had fared better than he could have hoped. Only one of the strings had been cut upon a stone. Involuntarily he tried the others?a proceeding which, being mistaken by his angered father for bravado, provoked a fiercely opened window and a volley of books. "Take these, too," shouted the father, "till you read these you were of some use in the world ? " The boy calmly and gently examined the books, and then, turning to his father, he said: "Father, will you do me one last favour? You have thrown me out...