Page:Margaret Sherwood--A Puritan in Bohemia.djvu/94

86 and the look on faces in the streets show me how to do it. I can't see anything else, or think of anything else."

They passed one of the city's old burying-grounds, which make sudden silences along the busy streets. The clear sunlight on the leaves shading those forgotten graves brought tears to the artist's eyes.

"Oh!" she cried, "the pain of life presses down so heavily that I cannot bear it. I sometimes wonder if the reason why I am hard-hearted is because things hurt me so that I cannot feel."

On Sunday afternoons Howard usually accompanied Mrs. Kent. He was a welcome guest. The wicked old woman called him a beautiful young man. The girls in the Italian families flushed with pride at the honour of his calls. Children swarmed upon his knees. Babies rode upon his shoulder. He had a chivalrous way of protecting the helpless. He stopped one day abruptly in an exposition of his views, to guide an aged rag-picker across the street. Returning, he finished his