Fearlessly the little boy, grown somewhat bigger now, walked among the debris of this idol, stamping the floor, sounding the walls, detecting cracks in the ceiling, spots on the wall-paper and cobwebs in the corners.

Yet serene amid the ruins towered his valiant spirit, conscious under the catastrophe of its power to build other and yet stauncher idols.
Thus was it one day to stretch itself with new power amid the base ruins of Cousin Bill J., though the time was mercifully deferred--that his soul might gain strength in worship to put away even that which it worshipped when the day of new truth dawned.
When Cousin Bill J., in the waning of that first winter, began actually to refine his own superlative elegance by spraying his superior garments with perfume, by munching tiny confections reputed to scent the breath desirably, by a more diligent grooming of the always superb moustache, the little boy suspected no motive.

He saw these works only as the outward signs of an inward grace that must be ever increasing.

So it came that his amazement was above that of all other persons when, at Spring's first breath of honeyed fragrance, Cousin Bill J.went to be the husband of Miss Alvira Abney.

He had not failed to observe that Miss Alvira sang alto, in the choir, out of the same book from which Cousin Bill J.
produced his exquisite tenor.