However, I hope all will be well. But my niece
is over sensitive, brilliantly endowed, and ambitious,--at times I
have fears for her future."
"Depression again!" declared the Archbishop, rising and preparing to
take his leave--"Believe me, the world is full of excellence when we
look upon it with clear eyes;--things are never as bad as they seem.
To my thinking, you are the last man alive who should indulge in
melancholy forebodings. You have led a peaceful and happy life,
graced with the reputation of many good deeds, and you are generally
beloved by the people of whom you have charge. Then, though celibacy
is your appointed lot, heaven has given you a niece as dear to you
as any child of your own could be, who has won a pre-eminent place
among the world's great artists, and is moreover endowed with beauty
and distinction. What more can you desire?"
He smiled expansively as he spoke; the Cardinal looked at him
steadfastly.
"I desire nothing!" he answered--"I never have desired anything! I
told you before that I consider I have received many more blessings
than I deserve. It is not any personal grief which at present
troubles me,--it is something beyond myself. It is a sense of
wrong,--an appeal for truth,--a cry from those who are lost in the
world,--the lost whom the Church might have saved!"
"Merely fancy!" said the Archbishop cheerily--"Like the music in the
Cathedral! Do not permit your imagination to get the better of you
in such matters! When you return from Rome, I shall be glad to see
you if you happen to come through Normandy on your way back to your
own people.
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