Now from that day the humble Lenny and the regal Violante became great friends.

With what pride he taught her to distinguish between celery and weeds,--and how proud too was she when she learned that she was useful! There is not a greater pleasure you can give children, especially female children, than to make them feel they are already of value in the world, and serviceable as well as protected.

Weeks and months rolled away, and Lenny still read, not only the books lent him by the doctor, but those he bought of Mr.Sprott.As for the bombs and shells against religion which the tinker carried in his bag, Lenny was not induced to blow himself up with them.

He had been reared from his cradle in simple love and reverence for the Divine Father, and the tender Saviour, whose life beyond all records of human goodness, whose death beyond all epics of mortal heroism, no being whose infancy has been taught to supplicate the Merciful and adore the Holy, yea, even though his later life may be entangled amidst the thorns of some desolate pyrrhonism, can ever hear reviled and scoffed without a shock to the conscience and a revolt of the heart.

As the deer recoils by instinct from the tiger, as the very look of the scorpion deters you from handling it, though you never saw a scorpion before, so the very first line in some ribald profanity on which the tinker put his black finger made Lenny's blood run cold.