4A DOG OF FLANDERS. QI

do choose sometimes — choose to be
great, so that men cannot say them
nay.” And he thought so still in his
innocence; and one day, when the
little Alois, finding him by chance
alone amongst the corn-fields by the
canal, ran to him and held him close,
and sobbed piteously because the mor-
row would be her saint’s day, and
for the first time in all her life her
parents had failed to bid him to the
little supper and romp in the great
barns with which her feast-day was
always celebrated, Nello had. kissed
her and murmured to her in firm
faith, ‘It shall be different one day,
Alois. One day that little bit of
pine wood that your father has of
mine shall be worth its weight in