It seemed indeed as if
the great soldier who had ridden into Orleans with Dunois and the Maid
had begun to lay aside his earthly glories and seek the heavenly.
There, upon a chair set within the cloisters, in a place which the
sunshine touched most lovingly and where it lingered longest, he sat,
nodding his head to the sound of the sweet singing, and bowing low at
each mention of the name of Jesus (as the custom is)--a still,
meditative, almost saintly man. Upon the lap of his furred robe (for,
after all, it was a sunshine with a certain shrewd wintriness in it)
lay an illuminated copy of the Holy Gospels; and sometimes as he
listened to the choir-boys singing, he glanced therein, and read of
the little children to whom belongs the kingdom. Upon occasion he
lifted the book also, and looked with pleasure at the pictured cherubs
who cheered the way of the Master Jerusalemwards with strewn palm
leaves and shouted hosannas.
And ever sweeter and sweeter fell the music upon his ear, till
suddenly, like the silence after a thunderclap, the organ ceased to
roll, the choir was silent, and out of the quiet rose a single
voice--that of Laurence the Scot singing in a tenor of infinite
sweetness the words of blessing:
"_Suffer the little children to come unto Me,
And forbid them not;
For of such is the Kingdom of Heaven.
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