Yet to the sick man even this Isle of the Stones of Emptiness was a place of rest and respite from the sea,--"It is still mother-earth," he said, "though the mother be grown very old and there be no flesh left on her bones"--and at first it seemed as though he was recovering in the motionless stillness and in the great shadow of the cliffs. Something of this Serapion said to the little chorister, but the lad answered: "Nay, father, do you not see how the man that used to look out of his eyes has become a very little child--and of such is the kingdom of heaven?"