' But she stubbornly shook her head. 'Where the eagle
built shall not the young eagle nest? How should God meet me in the way
and bless him who stood not by his birth right? The plot of ground was
the lad's, and all that is thereon. I pray thee, mock me not.' God knows
I did not mock her, for her words were wisdom. So did it work upon me
that, after many days, I got for the lad his own again, and there he is
happier, and his mother happier, than the Governor in his palace. Later I
did learn some truths from the shepherd, the messenger, and the beggar,
and the woman with the child; but chiefly from the woman and the child.
The material value has no relation to the value each sets upon that which
is his own. Behind this feeling lies the strength of the world. Here on
this hill of Bagdad I am thinking these things. And, Luke, I would have
thee also think on my story of the woman and the child. There is in it a
lesson for thee."
When Luke Claridge first read this letter years before, he had put it
from him sternly. Now he heard it with a soft emotion.
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