was sorry for him, for her elder sister was a cripple. He bowed to her, as he would have done to any woman, and for just one moment looked into her face. She looked back at him and something leaped within her.
The Angel made an irresolute movement. "Your eyes are very beautiful," he said quietly, with a remote wonder in his voice.
"Oh, sir!" she said, starting back. The Angel's expression changed to perplexity. He went on up the pathway between the Vicar's flower-beds, and she stood with the gate held open in her hand, staring after him. Just under the rose-twined verandah he turned and looked at her.
She still stared at him for a moment, and then with a queer gesture turned round with her back to him, shutting the gate as she did so, and seemed to be looking down the valley towards the church tower.
§ 33
At the dinner table the Angel told the Vicar the more striking of his day's adventures.
"The strange thing," said the Angel, "is the readiness of you Human Beings—the zest, with which you inflict pain. Those boys pelting me this morning———"
"Seemed to enjoy it," said the Vicar. "I know."
"Yet they don't like pain," said the Angel.
"No," said the Vicar; "they don't like it."
"Then," said the Angel, "I saw some beautiful plants rising with a spike of leaves, two this way and
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