"You would not have minded, would you, mother?" he asked.
"No, not for the sake of the milk, certainly," responded Mrs. Norris,
laughing; "but--" then she hesitated. How could she hamper the mind of
this ingenuous little lad of hers with false and finical ideas of
refinement and delicacy! Why should she suggest to him that it is at
least not customary to go about giving the poor to drink out of our own
especial milk cans? There came to her mind the noble lines which but
frame as with jewels the simple Christian precept,--the words spoken to
Sir Launfal when, weary, poverty-stricken, and disheartened, the knight
returns from his fruitless search for the Holy Grail; when humbly he
shares his cup and crust with the leper at the gate,--the leper who
straightway stands before him glorified, a vision of Our Lord, and
tells him that true love of our neighbor consists in,
"Not what we give, but what we share;
For the gift without the giver is bare."
And then the mother's hands rested lovingly a moment upon Tom's head,
as again she repeated more softly: "No, certainly.
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