Lucian the dreamer

ht, Sprats knelt at the open window of her bedroom, staring out upon the valley with eyes that saw nothing. She was thinking and wondering, and for the first time in

she began to realise him. She saw now that he was no ordinary human being, and that as long as he lived he would never be amenable to ordinary rules. He was now a child in years, and he had the heart of a man; soon he would be a man, and he would still be a child. He would be a child all his life-self-willed, obstinate, proud, generous, wayward; he would sin as a child sins, and suffer as a child suffers; and there would always be something of wonder in him that either sin or suffering should come to him. When she felt his head within her protecting and consoling arm, Sprats recognised{86} the weakness and helplessness which lay in Lucian's soul-he was the child that has

ow she saw the stars and the deep blue of the sky, and she heard the murmur of the river in the valley. Her prayers took no form of words, and were all the deeper for it