Everyone wondered how he
had managed to rise so rapidly in the Master's graces. Madame Steynlin
now stepped between them. She grew fond of Peter, and marked him for
her own. He fulfilled every one of her conditions as to age, costume
and opinions. Besides, he was always so gloriously hungry! She invited
him to take luncheon once or twice and then began to take Russian
lessons from him. "He is only a boy," she would say.
Conversing, as best she could, with this child of nature, it dawned
upon her that she had hitherto been mistaken in her estimate of the
Russian character. She began to understand the inward sense of that
brotherly love, that apostolic spirit, which binds together every class
of the immense Empire--to revere their simplicity of soul and calm
god-like faith. She revised her former narrow Lutheran views and openly
confessed that she was quite wrong in declaring, as she once did, that
what the Little White Cows needed was "more soap and less salvation."
The magic of love! It softened, not for the first time, her heart
towards all humanity and in particular, on this occasion, towards the
rest of the saintly band; were they not her brothers and sisters? She
even knitted six pairs of warm woollen socks and sent them with a
polite message to the Master--a message which was left unanswered,
though the socks were never returned.
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