He himself was beautiful.
His figure was erect and youthful, despite seventy years.
His face was as mobile and charming as a woman's, yet with
all a man's tried strength and firmness in it, and his dark
blue eyes flashed with the brilliance of one and twenty;
even his silken silvery hair could not make an old man of him.
He was worshipped by everyone who knew him, and he was,
in so far as mortal man may be, worthy of that worship.
"Old Abel is amusing himself with his violin again," he thought.
"What a delicious thing he is playing! He has quite a gift
for the violin. But how can he play such a thing as that,--
a battered old hulk of a man who has, at one time or another,
wallowed in almost every sin to which human nature can sink?
He was on one of his sprees three days ago--the first one
for over a year--lying dead-drunk in the market square in
Charlottetown among the dogs; and now he is playing something
that only a young archangel on the hills of heaven ought to be
able to play. Well, it will make my task all the easier.
Abel is always repentant by the time he is able to play
on his fiddle."
Mr. Leonard was on the door-stone. The little black dog had frisked
down to meet him, and the gray cat rubbed her head against his leg.
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