Transcriber's Note:
Obvious typographic errors have been corrected.
A Table of Contents has been added.

MISUNDERSTOOD

BY

FLORENCE MONTGOMERY,

AUTHOR OF

"A VERY SIMPLE STORY," and "PEGGY AND OTHER TALES,"
"THROWN TOGETHER."

NEW YORK:
ANSON D. F. RANDOLPH & COMPANY,
38 WEST TWENTY-THIRD STREET.

TO

THE HON. MRS. AUGUSTUS LIDDELL

THE FOLLOWING STORY

IS

Dedicated.

CONTENTS

PREFACE.

The following is not a child's story. It is intended for those who are interested in children; for those who are willing to stoop to view life as it appears to a child, and to enter for half-an-hour into the manifold small interests, hopes, joys, and trials which make up its sum.

It has been thought that the lives of children, as known by themselves, from their own little point of view, are not always sufficiently realized; that they are sometimes overlooked or misunderstood; and to throw some light, however faint, upon the subject, is one of the objects of this little story.

So much of it has been gathered from observation and recollection, that the author cannot help hoping it may not entirely fail of its aim.

MISUNDERSTOOD.

In Two Parts.

PART I.

CHAPTER I.

Ever since the nursery dinner has the rain come pouring down all over the fields and meadows, the lawns and gardens, the roofs and gables of old Wareham Abbey, in the county of Sussex.

Ever since the cloth was cleared away have two little curly heads been pressed close together at the nursery window, and two pair of eager eyes been watching the clouds and sky.

What a dreadful wet afternoon! It is so particularly tiresome, as their father is expected home to-day, and had promised the two little brothers that they should come and meet him at the station.

There would be no room for Virginie in the dog-cart, and so, if they promised to sit very still, and not stand on the wheel to get in, or jump out before the carriage had stopped, or do anything else equally extraordinary, they were to have been trusted to old Peter, the coachman, and what fun that would have been!

To get away from Virginie for so long was the height of human enjoyment. She seemed to them a being created on purpose to interfere with every plan of enjoyment, to foresee danger where they only saw fun, and so bring the shadow of her everlasting "Ne faites pas ceci, ne faites pas cela," across the sunny path of their boyish schemes and pastimes.

Poor Virginie! if she had been brought to the bar of their young judgments, she would have been at once condemned without any reference to extenuating circumstances. And yet she was, in the main a good, well-meaning woman, but unfortunately gifted with "nerves;" and the responsibility of the entire charge of the children of a widower, who was a great deal away from home, made her life an anxious one, more especially as they were a pair of the most reckless creatures that ever were born—fearless of danger, heedless of consequences, and deaf to entreaty or remonstrance.

Little Miles, the youngest, as she often told their father, was well enough alone; she could manage him perfectly, for, being only four years old, he was amenable to authority; but "Monsieur Humphrey!"

Words always failed Virginie at this juncture. She could only throw up her hands, and raise her eyes to the ceiling, with a suppressed exclamation.

Sir Everard Duncombe was a member of Parliament, and during the session was almost entirely in London, so that beyond his Saturday to Monday at the Abbey, his children saw but little of him at this time of the year.

During these flying visits he was overwhelmed with complaints of all M. Humphrey had done during the past week: how he would climb impossible trees and jump from impossible heights; how he had gone into the stables right under the horses' heels, or taken a seat in the kennel, with the blood-hound; how narrowly he had escaped tumbling over the ha-ha one day, and slipping into the pond the next; in fact there was no end to his misdemeanors.

But the point on which Virginie harped was, that he led his little brother into all sorts of mischief; for what Humphrey did, Miles would do too, and where Humphrey went, Miles was ready to follow.

It was quite another thing, as Virginie urged, for Miles. Humphrey was proof against colds, coughs, and accidents of all kinds; but little Miles was physically weaker, and had moreover a tendency to a delicate chest and to croup; so that cold winds, and wet feet, and over-exertion, could not be too carefully avoided.

Timid and gentle by nature, clinging and affectionate by disposition, he was just the child a father delights in, and to him Sir Everard's affections were almost wholly given.

Lady Duncombe had observed her husband's partiality for his younger boy for some time before her death, and had more than once taxed him with it.

"Miles is such a little coaxing thing," he answered, taking the child up in his arms, and stroking the little curly head which nestled at once so contentedly down on his shoulder. "If I took Humphrey up, he would struggle to get down, and be climbing over the tables and chairs."

"Humphrey is three years older," argued Lady Duncombe; "you could not expect him to sit so still as a baby not yet two: but he is quite as affectionate as Miles, in a different way."

"It may be so," Sir Everard returned "but it is very engaging when a little creature clings to one in this way, and sits for hours in one's lap."

Lady Duncombe did not answer, but her eye wandered from the fair-haired baby and rested on her eldest boy, who for three years had been her only child. To her, at least, he was an object of pride and pleasure. She gloried in his manly ways, his untiring spirits and activity; and loved his rough caresses quite as well as the more coaxing ways of his baby brother.

How she delighted to see him come rushing headlong into the room, and make one bound into her lap, even if he did knock down a chair or so on his way, upset her work-box and its contents, and dirty the sofa with his muddy boots. What then! Did not his eager kisses rain upon her cheek? Were not his dear rough arms round her neck? Did she not know what a loving heart beat under his apparent heedlessness and forgetfulness? What if he forgot every injunction and every promise, if he did not forget her! What if he took heed of no one and nothing, if her look and her kiss were always sought and cared for!

Oh! it was a sad day for little Humphrey Duncombe when that mother was taken away from him: when the long, wasting illness ended in death: when the hollow eye, which to the last had rested on him, closed for ever on this world; and the thin, transparent hands were folded for the last time on the breast where he should never again hide his curly head, and sob out his confessions and repentance.

Sir Everard, overwhelmed by the blow which had fallen on him, hardly saw his children during the early days of his bereavement.

When he did, he was surprised to find Humphrey much the same as ever; still noisy and heedless, still full of mischief, and apparently forgetful of what had happened.

"He has not much heart," was his inward comment, as he watched the little figure, in its deep mourning, chasing the young lambs in the meadow.

Sir Everard saw the boy to all appearance the same, because he saw him in his moments of forgetfulness, when nature and childhood had asserted their rights, and the buoyancy of the boy's disposition had enabled him to throw off the memory of his sorrow: but he did not see him when the sense of his loss was upon him; did not see the face change, when the recollection came over him; did not hear the familiar name half uttered, and then choked by a sob. He did not see the rush to the drawing-room, with some new treasure, some new plan to be unfolded—and the sudden stop at the door, as the thought swept over him that on the well-known sofa there is now no mother's smile awaiting him, no ever-ready ear to listen and sympathize, no loving kiss, no responsive voice: and the low sob of pain, the listless drop of the arms to the side, and the rush away into the open air, away and away, anywhere, to escape from the grief and the longing, and the blank sense of desolation.

Only He, who dwelling in the highest heaven, yet vouchsafes to behold the lowest creature here upon earth, knew what was in the heart of the boy; as no one but He saw the pillow wet with tears, and heard the cry breaking forth in the dead of the night from the inmost recesses of the poor little orphaned heart. "Oh, mother! mother! what shall I do without you!"

All this had happened nearly two years before the day of which I am speaking, when the rain was acting its time-hackneyed part before the two little spectators at the window.

It had faded out of little Miles' mind as if it had never been; he could not even remember his mother; but in the mind of the elder boy her memory was still, at times, fresh and green.

Weeks and months might pass without his thoughts dwelling on her, but all of a sudden, a flower, a book, or some little thing that had belonged to her, would bring it all back, and then the little chest would heave, the curly head would droop, and the merry brown eyes be dimmed by a rush of tears.

There was a full-length picture in the now unused drawing-room of Lady Duncombe, with Humphrey in her arms; and at these times, or when he was in some trouble with Virginie, the boy would steal in there, and lie curled up on the floor in the darkened room; putting himself in the same attitude that he was in in the picture, and then try to fancy he felt her arms round him, and her shoulder against his head.

There were certain days when the room was scrubbed and dusted; when the heavy shutters were opened, and the daylight streamed upon the picture. Then the two little brothers might be seen standing before it, while the elder detailed to the younger all he could remember about her.

Miles had the greatest respect and admiration for Humphrey. A boy of seven, who wears knickerbockers, is always an object of veneration to one of four, who is as yet limited to blouses: but Miles' imagination could not soar beyond the library and dining-room; and he could not remember the drawing-room otherwise than a closed room; so his respect grew and intensified as he listened to Humphrey's glowing description of the past glories of the house, when the drawing-room was one blaze of light, when there were muslin curtains in the windows, and chintz on all the chairs; and mother lay on the sofa, with her work-table by her side.

Dim and shadowy was the little fellow's idea of the "mother" of whom his brother always spoke in softened tones and with glistening eyes; but that she was something very fair and holy he was quite sure.

Deep was his sense of his inferiority to Humphrey in this respect; and a feeling akin to shame would steal over him when one of their long conversations would be abruptly put an end to by Humphrey's quick, contemptuous "It's no use trying to make you understand, because you don't remember her."

A very wistful look would come over the pretty little face on these occasions, and he would humbly admit his great degradation.

It was Miles' admiration for his brother that was the bane of Virginie's life. Timid by nature, Miles became bold when Humphrey led the way; obedient and submissive by himself, at Humphrey's bidding he would set Virginie at defiance, and for the time be as mischievous as he.

That "l'union fait la force," Virginie had long since discovered, to the ruin of her nerves and temper.

And now Virginie has several times suggested that if Humphrey will submit to a water-proof coat, and goloshes, he may go and meet his father at the station; and Humphrey has consented to come to terms if Miles may go too.

But here Virginie is firm. No amount of wrapping up would prevent Miles catching cold on so damp and rainy a day, as she knows well, by fatal experience; so the fiat has gone forth, either Humphrey will go alone, or both will stay at home.

"Don't go," pleaded little Miles, as they pressed their faces against the window; "it will be so dull all alone with Virginie."

"She's a cross old thing," muttered Humphrey; "but never mind, Miles, I won't go without you, and we'll count the raindrops on the window to make the time pass quick."

This interesting employment had the desired effect, and the next half-hour soon slipped by. Indeed, it was so engrossing, that the dog-cart came up the avenue, and was nearly at the hall door, before the little boys perceived it.

"Qu'est-ce que c'est donc!" exclaimed Virginie, startled by Humphrey's jump from the window-sill to the floor.

"C'est mon père," was all the information he vouchsafed her, as he rushed out of the room.

"M. votre père! Attendez done que je vous arrange un peu les cheveux."

She spoke to the winds: nothing was heard of Humphrey but sundry bumps and jumps in the distance, which told of his rapid descent down the stairs.

The more tardy Miles was caught and brushed, in spite of his struggles, and then he was off to join his brother.

He reached the hall door just as the carriage drove up, and the two little figures jumped and capered about, while a tall, dark gentleman divested himself of his mackintosh and umbrella, and then came up the steps into the house.

He stooped down to kiss the eager faces. "Well, my little fellows, and how are you both? No bones broken since last week? No new bruises and bumps, eh?"

They were so taken up with their father, that they did not perceive that he was not alone, but that another gentleman had got out of the dog-cart, till Sir Everard said—

"Now go and shake hands with that gentleman. I wonder if you know who he is?"

Humphrey looked up into the young man's face, and said, while his color deepened—

"I think you are my Uncle Charlie, who came to see us once a long time ago before you went to sea, and before——"

"Quite right," said Sir Everard, shortly; "I did not think you would have remembered him. I daresay, Charlie, Humphrey has not altered very much; but this little fellow was quite a baby when you went away," he added, taking Miles up in his arms, and looking at his brother-in-law for admiration.

"What a likeness!" exclaimed Uncle Charlie.

Sir Everard put the child down with a sigh.

"Like in more ways than one, I am afraid. Look here," pointing to the delicate tracery of the blue veins on the forehead, and the flush on the fair cheek.

Humphrey had been listening intently to this conversation, and his father being once more occupied with kissing Miles, he advanced to his uncle, and put his hand confidingly in his.

"You are a nice little man," said Uncle Charlie, laying his other hand on the curly head; "we were always good friends, Humphrey. But," he added, half to himself, as he turned up the bright face to his, and gazed at it intently for a moment, "you are not a bit like your mother."

The dressing-gong now sounded, and the little boys proceeded to their father's room, to help or hinder him with his toilette.

Miles devoted himself to the carpet-bag, in expectation of some tempting paper parcel; while Humphrey's attentions were given to first one and then the other of the articles he was extracting from the pocket of the coat Sir Everard had just thrown off.

A suspicious click made the baronet turn round.

"What have you got hold of, Humphrey?"

An open pocket-knife dropped from the boy's hand he had just succeeded in opening the two blades, and was in the act of trying the edges on his thumb nail.

Failing in that experiment, his restless fingers strayed to the dressing-table, and an ominous silence ensued.

"Humphrey," shouted his father, "put my razor down."

In the glass he had caught sight of a well-soaped face, and spoke just in time to stop the operation.

Punishment always follows sin, and Humphrey was dispatched to the nursery to have his face sponged and dried.

By taking a slide down the banisters, however, he made up for lost time, and arrived at the library-door at the same time as his father and brother.

Uncle Charlie was standing by the window, ready dressed; and the gong sounding at that moment, they all went in to dinner.

The two little brothers had a chair on each side of their father, and an occasional share in his food.

Dinner proceeded in silence. Uncle Charlie was enjoying his soup, and Sir Everard, dividing himself between his little boys and his meal.

"It's William's birthday to-day," said Humphrey, breaking silence.

The unfortunate individual in white silk stockings, thus suddenly brought into public notice, reddened to the roots of his hair; and in his confusion nearly dropped the dish he was in the act of putting down before his master.

"He's twenty-two years old to-day," continued Humphrey; "he told me so this morning."

Sir Everard tried to evince a proper amount of interest in so important an announcement.

"What o'clock were you born, William?" pursued Humphrey, addressing the shy young footman at the side-board, where he had retreated with the dish-cover, and from whence he was making all sorts of signs to his tormentor, in the vain hope of putting an end to the conversation.

Sir Everard hastily held out a bit of turbot on the end of his fork, and effectually stopped the boy's mouth for a few minutes; but no sooner had he swallowed it, than he broke out again.

"What are you going to give William for his birthday present, father?" he said, putting his arms on the table, and resting his chin upon them, that he might the more conveniently look up into his father's face, and await his answer.

Lower and lower bent Uncle Charlie's head over his plate, and his face became alarmingly suffused with color.

"I know what he'd like," finished Humphrey, "for he's told me!"

The unhappy footman snatched up a dish-cover, and began a retreat to the door; but the inexorable butler handed him the lobster sauce, and he was obliged to advance with it to his master's side.

"I said to him to-day," proceeded Humphrey, in all the conscious glory of being in William's confidence, "If father were to give you a birthday present, what would you like? You remember, don't you, William? And then he told me, didn't you, William?"

The direct form of attack was more than flesh and blood could stand. William made a rush to the door with the half-filled tray and, in spite of furious glances from the butler, disappeared, just as Uncle Charlie gave it up as a bad job, and burst out laughing.

"You must not talk quite so much at dinner, my boy," said Sir Everard, when the door was shut; "your uncle and I have not been able to say a word. I assure you," he added in an under tone to his brother-in-law, "these children keep me in constant hot water; I never know what they will say next."

When the servants reappeared the gentlemen, to William's relief, were talking politics; and Humphrey was devoting his energies to digging graves in the salt, and burying therein imaginary corpses, represented by pills he was forming from his father's bread.

"Will you come and help me with my dinner, next week, Charlie?" said Sir Everard; "I am going to entertain the aborigines, and I shall want a little assistance. It is now more than two years since I paid my constituents any attention, and I feel the time has come."

"What long words," said Humphrey, sotto voce, as he patted down the last salt grave, and stuck a bit of parsley, that had dropped from the fish, on the top of the mound. "Father," he went on, "what are abo—abo—"

"Aborigines?" finished Uncle Charlie. "Wild men of the woods, Humphrey; half human beings, half animals."

"And is father going to have them to dinner?" exclaimed Humphrey, in great astonishment.

"Yes," said Uncle Charlie, enjoying the joke; "it will be fine fun for you and Miles, won't it?"

"Oh, won't it!" echoed Humphrey, jumping down from his chair, and capering about. "Oh, father! will you promise, before you even ask Virginie, that we may come down to dinner that night, and see them?"

"Well, I don't know about dinner," said Sir Everard; "little boys are rather in the way on these occasions, especially those who don't know how to hold their tongues when they ought; but you shall both come down in the library and see them arrive."

At this moment Virginie's unwelcome head appeared at the door, and her unwelcome voice proclaimed, "M. Humphrey, M. Miles, il faut venir vous coucher."

Very unwillingly did they obey, for the conversation had reached a most interesting point, and Humphrey had a hundred and one questions still to put about the aborigines.

They proceeded quietly upstairs, closely followed by Virginie, who always liked to see them well on in front of her, in case they should take it into their heads to do anything very extraordinary on their way.

To-night, however, they were much too full of the wild men of the woods they were to see on Friday to think of anything else, and they arrived in the bed-room nursery, without giving any shocks to Virginie's nervous system.

Indeed, the subject lasted them till they were undressed, and washed, and tucked up in their little beds side by side.

Virginie shut the shutters, and with a sigh of relief retired to supper.

"I'm glad she's gone," said Humphrey, "because now we can have a good talk about the wild men."

"Oh, Humphie!" said little Miles beseechingly, "please don't let us talk of them any more now it's dark; or if you really must, give me your hand to hold, for it does frighten me so."

"Then we won't talk about them," said the elder boy in a soothing tone, as he drew close to the edge of the bed, and threw his arm protectingly round the little one. Miles nestled close up to him, and with their cheeks one against the other, and hands tightly clasped together, they fell asleep.

Poor little curly heads, o'er whom no fond mother shall bend to-night, murmuring soft words of love and blessing! Poor dimpled faces, on whom no lingering kiss shall fall!

Outside in the meadows, the young lambs lay by the ewe's side; up in the trees the wee birds nestled beneath the parent wing, but no light step, no softly rustling gown, no carefully shaded light, disturbed the dreamless slumber of the two little brothers.

CHAPTER II.

Sir Everard Duncombe did not make his appearance in the dining-room till nine o'clock, but long before that hour his movements were known to the whole household; for soon after eight, the two little boys were stationed outside his door, and failing to gain admittance, kept account of the progress of his toilette, in tones which were heard all over the house.

"Will you soon be out of your bath, father?... Are you just about soaping?... What are you doing now?... Are you sponging now?... What a splash father is having! He must be drying himself now, he is so very quiet."

Then sounded the unlocking of a door, and the scamper of little feet.

"I must congratulate you on the satisfactory way in which you performed your ablutions this morning," was Uncle Charlie's salutation to his brother-in-law, as he entered the breakfast room with a boy on each side of him.

Sir Everard laughed. "There are no secrets in this house, you see," he answered, as he shook hands. "What a lovely day!"

"Glorious! but it is going to be very hot. If I remember right, the walk to church is shady all the way. Do these little fellows go to church?"

"Not Miles, but I generally take Humphrey; and wonderful to say he is as quiet as possible. I really think church is the only place in the world where he can sit still."

Humphrey was engaged during the whole of breakfast time in finding the places in his prayer-book, and was too much occupied to talk.

"There!" he exclaimed triumphantly, as he put in the last marker, and restrained himself with a violent effort as he was about to throw his prayer-book in the air, "now they are all found."

"And now you had better go and dress," said his father, "so as not to keep your uncle and me waiting."

Humphrey joined them in the hall at the last minute, having been detained by a skirmish with Virginie.

Their way to church lay through the flower-garden and down the avenue. They went out by the side-door, leaving Miles looking disconsolately after them, his pretty little face and slight figure framed in the old doorway.

They walked on together in silence for some time.

Sir Everard was enjoying the calm beauty of the summer day; Humphrey was in pursuit of a butterfly; and Uncle Charlie was looking round at the evidences of his dead sister's taste in the laying out of the flower-garden, and thinking of the last time he had walked through it to church, when she had been by his side.

"How hot that boy will make himself before we get to church," said Sir Everard, presently; "I really don't know what he is made of, to run on a day like this."

"He is a fine boy," said Uncle Charlie, as he watched the active little figure skipping over the flower-beds, "and seems as strong and well as possible."

"Yes," said the baronet, "Humphrey has never had a day's illness in his life. He takes after my family, and is going to be as strong and as tall as they."

"He is very like some of the old family pictures I was looking at this morning; the same upright, well-built figure, and dark eyes. Now Miles is altogether different, so fair and slender."

"I fear Miles inherits his mother's constitution," answered the baronet, in a troubled tone. "He is very delicate, Charlie, and the least chill brings on croup, or a nasty little cough. I feel very anxious about him sometimes."

"I daresay he will grow out of it. I believe I had a delicate chest at his age, and I am never troubled with it now."

They were some way down the avenue, and Humphrey was nowhere to be seen.

"I never wait for him," said Sir Everard, as he opened the park gates; "he always turns up at last."

They were half-way across the churchyard when the boy overtook them, flushed and breathless.

Uncle Charlie inwardly groaned at the thoughts of so restless a mortal, as a next-door neighbor, during two hours' service on a hot summer's morning, and watched his movements with some anxiety.

Little Humphrey took off his hat in the porch, shook back his curly hair from his hot forehead, and walked quietly into church.

He led the way to the chancel, where was the old fashioned family pew.

Here he came to a dead stop, for the bolt of the door was high above his reach.

His uncle undid it for him, and was about to pass in, thinking that of course the child would sit by his father; but to his surprise, his little nephew pushed past him, went to the very end of the long pew, and clambered up the high-cushioned seat opposite a big prayer-book, which was surmounted with the monogram "Adelaide."

The rustic congregation had often wondered why the father and son sat at so great a distance from each other in the pew that so seldom had any occupants but themselves; and the old clergyman had at first with difficulty suppressed a smile at the view from the pulpit, of the broad shoulders and bearded face of the six foot man at one extremity, and the top of the small brown head at the other.

But in vain had Sir Everard invited the boy to sit nearer to him; he preferred his isolation. It had once occurred to the widower that it might be because it had been his wife's place; but he never gave Humphrey credit for much heart or sentiment, so he had settled it was a mere whim and never asked the boy any questions on the subject.

The child himself had never confided to anyone but Miles how he loved to feel he was looking at the very same bit of the painted window which his mother's eyes had fallen upon; that his feet were on the very same footstool that her's had rested on; and though the big prayer-book was too heavy for him to open, he liked to put his own little morocco volume upon it, and to press his little fingers on the "Adelaide" that formed the monogram of her name.

He could not have explained what there was about the old church that brought back to him more than anything else the memory of his mother, but so it was: and the usually restless boy would sit quiet in his corner, and think of the first Sunday he had come to church, when he had read out of the same prayer-book with her, and listened to her sweet voice as she joined in the Psalms and Hymns.

The service began, and Humphrey struggled down from his seat.

The villagers had grown accustomed, when the congregation stood up, to see the baronet rise tall and broad from his seat, and the little brown head of his son disappear altogether; but Uncle Charlie was by no means prepared for so complete a collapse, and thought his nephew had fallen. However, there he was, standing on the ground, with his eyes fixed on his prayer-book, and the walls of the pew towering over him on every side.

"Why on earth does he not stand on a stool?" was the young man's inward reflection.

Truth to say, the temptation to gain three feet in height, and get a view of what was passing around, had at times assailed Humphrey, but he felt sure his mother had never stood on the stool, and so he resisted the inclination.

And, indeed, if Lady Duncombe had mounted the very high structure which went by the name of a hassock, the effect would have been a trial to the gravity of the congregation.

Humphrey followed the service pretty well till the chanting began, and here he always got wrong. Do what he would he could not keep time with the rest, but always arrived at the end of the verse either too early or too late.

By slow degrees he had discovered that it did not do to sing straight through to the end, because there were some bits and words they sang over again; but how he was ever to discover which particular word or sentence they were going to repeat, was to him a perpetual puzzle.

He had a great admiration for the turns and shakes with which the old clerk varied the "Te Deum," and had once indulged in a mild imitation of the same; till he caught sight of his father frowning at him from the other end of the pew.

When the hymn was given out, Uncle Charlie saw Humphrey in great difficulties over finding his place, so he made a sign to him to come and share his hymn-book; but, with a most decided shake of the head, Humphrey produced his own, and, without moving from his place, held it out to have his place found.

As the young man returned it to his nephew, he saw on the fly-leaf the name "Adelaide Duncombe," in the well-known handwriting of his dead sister; and he did justice to the boy's motive.

When the old clergyman opened his sermon-book, Humphrey settled himself in his corner, in exact imitation of his father.

It always took him some time to copy the position, and sometimes, when he had just accomplished it, Sir Everard would uncross his leg, or move a hand, and then he was quite discomfited, and had to begin all over again.

To-day, however, his attitude was quite simple. Sir Everard folded his arms, crossed his legs, and turning his head to the pulpit, disposed himself to listen.

Humphrey did the same.

Then rose the voice of the old clergyman "In the fourteenth chapter of the Book of the Revelation of St. John, and at the second verse, you will find the word of God thus written: 'And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, ... and I heard the harpers harping with their harps.... And they sang as it were a new song, and no man could learn that song but the hundred and forty and four thousand, which were redeemed from the earth.'" ...

Humphrey did not often listen to the sermon, but to-day it was all about Heaven, and he liked to hear about that, because his mother was there.

Feeble must human language ever be to paint the glories of that far-off land; but when men touch upon subjects that so vitally concern all, they carry their hearers with them.

And so it was, that as the old preacher warmed and glowed with his theme, the hearts of the congregation warmed and glowed too; and there was silence and deep attention in the old church that day.

Even the village school children fidgeted less than usual, and one or two smock-frocks who had settled themselves in their usual attitude, of arms crossed on the back of the bench in front of them, and heads cradled thereupon, shook off the drowsiness consequent on their long, hot walk to church, and sitting up, gave their attention to the sermon. For were not one and all bound to the land the preacher was describing? And was there one who could say, "What is this to me?"

Only twice was even Humphrey's attention distracted. The first time was when he saw his uncle take a pencil out of his pocket, and underline something in his Bible. This was altogether a novel proceeding; Humphrey had never seen it done before, and he felt it incumbent upon him to sidle along the pew-seat up to his uncle to investigate the matter.

Uncle Charlie gave him his Bible, and he saw that the text of the sermon was the passage marked.

He inwardly resolved, as he regained his corner by the shuffling process before mentioned, that he would in future bring a pencil to church and do likewise.

The next disturbance was of a more exciting character. A vagrant wasp, after disporting itself in different parts of the church, made an inroad into the family pew, and fixed upon Uncle Charlie as its victim. Humphrey, attracted by the buzzing, turned round, and saw his uncle engaged in desperate conflict.

Bobbing his head first to one side, and then to the other, now drawing himself suddenly back, and now as suddenly swerving forward, every now and then making a frantic grab in the air with the back of his hand, Uncle Charlie strove to escape from his assailant in vain.

Humphrey tried hard to keep his countenance as he watched the encounter, but it would not do. The merry smile broke out from every corner of his face, and, in great alarm, he crammed his hands into his mouth to stifle the laughter he felt would, in another moment, break out.

Uncle Charlie was already very angry at being disqualified from listening to a sermon he was enjoying by so paltry a cause as the attacks of a wasp, and now, when he saw his nephew's condition, he grew desperate.

Seizing a hymn-book, he made a plunge at his tormentor, and brought it to the ground, where he crushed it to atoms with his heel; and with a sensation of great relief saw Humphrey's countenance return to an expression of becoming composure, and found himself in a condition to take up the thread of the discourse.

Humphrey's attention was once more riveted on the sermon, and his little mind strove to follow the clergyman as he spoke of the white-robed thousands wandering by the jasper sea in the golden Jerusalem; that "great multitude which no man can number of all kindreds, and nations, and tongues;" uniting their songs in the same burst of glorious psalmody as the "voice of many waters," and as the voice of mighty thunderings, saying, "Alleluia; for the Lord God omnipotent reigneth."

"'Eye hath not seen,'" concluded the preacher, as if in despair of finding words to express the inconceivable glory and beauty of the halls of Sion, "'eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither hath it entered into the heart of man the things which God hath prepared for them that love Him.' To Him, who bought them for us with his own blood, be glory for ever, and to countless ages."

Then the organ broke forth, doors opened and shut, the school-boys clattered down from the organ loft, and the congregation streamed out of church; leaving the old clergyman standing in his pulpit, gazing thoughtfully at the retreating throng, and wondering how much of what he had endeavored to impress upon their hearts would take root downwards, and bear fruit upwards.

Sir Everard Duncombe remained sitting some time after the service was over, looking at Humphrey's earnest face, and wondering what the boy was thinking of. When the clergyman had retired to the vestry, he rose, and led the way out.

Softly blew the summer breezes on little Humphrey's face as he stepped out into the porch, and the calm beauty of the summer morning was in perfect harmony with the turn which the sermon had given to his thoughts. All around was the beautifully-wooded country, lying calm and still under the cloudless sky. Perhaps if his vague ideas could have taken shape, they would have formed themselves into some such expression as—"Can heaven be fairer than this?"

But Humphrey's was not a nature that could long remain absorbed in thought, and he was soon skipping along the road in front of his father and uncle, and kicking up clouds of dust with his best Sunday boots.

At the park gates they found Miles and Virginie. The latter joined the other servants in the road, and the two little brothers walked on together.

"Did the clergyman take any of my texts to-day for his sermon?" asked the younger one eagerly, as he took hold of Humphrey's hand. (Miles was learning the beatitudes, and asked the question regularly every Sunday.)

"No, not one of them. He got a text out of the very last bit of the whole Bible—'The Revelation.'"

"That must be the bit Virginie never will read to me. She says I should not understand it. Do you understand the Revelations, Humphie?"

"Yes," returned Humphrey, promptly.

"Virginie doesn't," said Miles rather puzzled, "and she says very few grown-up people do."

"Virginie is French," retorted Humphrey, "and the Revelations are written in English. Of course she can't understand them as well as I do. There goes a rabbit. Let's run after it."

And Miles, perfectly satisfied with the explanation, followed his brother, panting into the fern.

In the afternoon the gentlemen went again to church, and as Virginie was at liberty to do the same, the children were left under the care of the housemaid.

Humphrey was learning a hymn, and, for once in his life, giving his whole attention to his task.

Miles, sitting on the housemaid's lap, was turning over the leaves of the "Peep of Day," and gleaning his ideas of sacred characters from the illustrations of that well-known work. He stopped in great amazement before the representation of Lazarus rising from the tomb, and demanded an explanation.

Jane, who had an idea that everything connected with death should be most carefully concealed from children, answered evasively that it was nothing, and tried to turn over the page, but boys are not so easily baulked.

Had Miles been a girl, he would probably have been satisfied to pass over the picture without further inquiry; girls' minds take a very superficial grasp of a subject; they are content to get at the shell of knowledge, and to leave the kernel untasted. Being a boy, Miles raised his large, grave eyes to Jane's face with an inquiring expression.

"Why don't you tell me?" he asked, laying a detaining hand on the leaf; "I want to know all about it. What is that great hole? and why is the man all sewed up in white?"

Jane, driven into a corner, admitted that the hole was a grave.

"But, lor! master Miles," added she, "you don't know nothing about them things, and if you want to know you must ask your pa!"

"Of course I know people die," said Miles, simply, "because my mamma's dead; so you're quite wrong, Jane, to say I don't understand those sort of things. I know all about it. When people die they are packed up in a box and put into the ground, and then if they've been good, God will come some day and unpack them."

Humphrey had joined the group just in time to hear the end of the explanation, and he met Jane's eye and smile with all the conscious superiority of his three years advance in religious knowledge.

"If mother were here, Miles," he whispered, "she would explain to you much better than that. There was something she used to tell me about our dead body being like a seed, that is, put into the ground, but will turn into a beautiful flower some day. Only I can't remember it quite like she said it," he added, sighing, "I wish I could."

"Oh, Humphie!" said little Miles eagerly, holding up the book, "can you remember what she used to say about this picture?"

But Humphrey taxed his memory in vain. It was all so dim, so confused, he could not remember sufficiently clearly to tell the story, so Jane was called upon to read it.

Now Jane left out her h's, and did not mind her stops, so the beautiful story of the raising of Lazarus must have lost much of its charm; but still the children listened with attention, for those who have nothing better must put up with what they have. Poor little opening minds, depending thus early on the instructions of an ignorant housemaid! forced to forego, in the first budding of youth, those lessons in Divine truth that came so lovingly, and withal so forcibly, from the lips of a tender mother; those lessons which linger on the heart of the full-grown man long after the lips that pronounced them are silenced for ever.

Depend upon it, association has a great power, and those passages in the Bible which bring to children most clearly the image of their mother, are those which, in after life, are loved and valued most.

And surely those childish memories owe something of their charm to the recollection of the quiet, well-modulated reading, the clear, refined enunciation; the repose of the attitude in the sofa or chair, the white hand that held the book, with, it may be, the flashing of the diamond ring in the light, as the fingers turned over the pages!

Even as I write, I see rising from the darkness before me a vision of a mother and a child. I see the soft eyes meeting those of the little listener on the stool, at her knee. I see the earnestness pervading every line of the beautiful face. I almost hear the tones of the gentle voice, which, while reducing the mysteries of Divine truth to the level of the baby comprehension, carry with them the unmistakable impress of her own belief in the things of which she is telling: the certainty that the love and trust she is describing are no mere abstract truths to her, but that they are life of her life, and breath of her breath!

And I see the child's eyes glow and expand under her earnestness, as the little mind catches a refraction of her enthusiasm. Is this a picture or is it a reality? Have I brought up to any one a dimly-remembered vision? Or is it purely idealistic and fanciful?

I do not know; and even as I gaze, the picture has melted into the darkness from which I conjured it, and I see it no more!

"Boys," sounded Sir Everard's voice at the bottom of the nursery stairs, "your uncle and I are going out for a walk. No one need come with us who would rather not."

There could be but one answer to such an appeal, and a rush and scamper ensued.

It was the usual Sunday afternoon routine, the stables and the farm, and then across the meadows to inspect the hayricks, and through the corn-fields to a certain gate that commanded the finest view on the estate.

"If only this weather lasts another fortnight," said Sir Everard, as his eyes wandered over golden fields, "I think we shall have a good harvest, eh, Charlie?"

"I am sure we shall," came from Humphrey, who always had an opinion on every subject, and never lost an opportunity of obtruding it on public attention; "we shall have such a lot of corn we shan't know what to do with it."

"Well, I have never found that to be the case yet," said his father; "but if the first part of your prediction prove true, we will have a Harvest Home and a dance, and you and Miles shall lead off, 'Up the middle and down again,' with the prettiest little girls you can find in the village."

"I know who I shall dance with," said Humphrey, balancing himself on the top of the gate, "but she's not a little girl, she's quite old, nearly twenty I daresay, and she's not pretty either. I don't care to dance with little girls, its babyish."

"Who is the happy lady, Humphrey?" asked Uncle Charlie.

"She is not a lady at all," said Humphrey, indignantly, "she's Dolly, the laundry maid, and wears pattens and turned up sleeves, and her arms are as red as her cheeks. Dolly's not the least like a lady."

"Except on Sundays," put in little Miles, "because then she's got her sleeves down, and is very smart. I saw Dolly going to church this morning, with boots all covered with little white buttons."

"That does not make her a lady," said the elder boy contemptuously. "It is no use trying to explain to you, Miles, what a lady is because you never see any."

"Not Mrs. Jones, the steward's wife?" suggested Miles timidly, and feeling he was treading on dangerous ground.

"No," said Humphrey, "she's not a real lady, not what I call a lady. You see, Miles," he added, sinking his voice, and drawing nearer to his brother, so that he might not be overheard, "I shall never be able to make you understand, because you can't remember mother."

"No," said poor little Miles, meekly, "I suppose not."

This argument was, as he knew by experience, conclusive, and he was always completely silenced by it.

"And who will my little Miles choose for a partner?" broke in Sir Everard; "it must be some very small girl, I think."

"I should like the little girl at the lodge, please, father, because she's the very only little girl I know who is smaller than me."

"Very well: then you are both provided. Charlie, you must come down to the Harvest Home, and see 'Up the middle and down again;' Humphrey struggling with his substantial partner, and Miles bringing up the rear with the 'very only little girl he knows who is smaller than him.'" The father's eye rested smiling on his two children as he pictured the sight to himself.

"And when may it be?" asked Humphrey. "Father, please settle a day for the harvest to begin."

"When the yellow corn is almost brown, you may settle a day for the harvest," answered his father. "I have a reaping-machine this year, and so it will soon be cut when once they begin."

"I shall come every day to these fields and see how it is getting on," said Miles.

"I know a much quicker way," said Humphrey, jumping down from the gate, and pulling up several ears of corn by the roots.

"I shall have them up in the nursery, and see them ripen every day."

"Why, you foolish boy," said his father, "you have picked them too soon, they will never ripen now."

Humphrey looked ruefully at his ears of corn. "I quite forgot," said he.

"They will never ripen now," repeated little Miles, sorrowfully.

"Never mind, Miles," said Humphrey, "I will plant them in the sunniest part of our own garden, where the soil is much better than here, and where, I daresay, they will grow much finer and better than if they had been left to ripen with the rest. Perhaps they will thank me some day for having pulled them up out of the rough field, and planted them in such a more beautiful place."

"Perhaps they will," breathed little Miles, clasping his hands with pleasure at the idea.

Miles was leaning against the gate, looking up admiringly at his brother, and Humphrey was sitting on the topmost bar, with the ears of corn in his hand.

"Let us go," said Sir Everard, suddenly; "it is intensely hot here, and I am longing to get under those limes in the next field."

The little boys climbed over the gate, and ran on to the indicated spot, followed more leisurely by their elders.

Sir Everard and Uncle Charlie threw themselves down on the grass in the shade, and the children, seating themselves by their father, begged for a story.

"Sailors are the men for stories," was his answer; "you had better ask your uncle."

Uncle Charlie proved a charming story teller. He told them of sharks and crocodiles, of boar-hunting, and of wonderful adventures by land and sea.

The children hung on his every word.

The shadows grew long, and the sun began to sink over the cornfields, and still they were absorbed in listening, and their father in watching their sparkling eyes and varying countenances.

"Come," said Sir Everard at last, jumping up, "no more stories, or we shall be here all night. It is past six, and Virginie will be wondering what has become of us."

"Oh!" said Humphrey, drawing a long breath, as he descended from those heights of wonder to the trifling details of everyday life, recalled by the mention of Virginie, "how delicious it has been! I hope, father, you will let me be a sailor when I grow up?"

"Well, I don't think that will exactly be your vocation," answered Sir Everard; "but there is plenty of time before you."

"Me, too," said little Miles; "I want to be a sailor too."

"You, my darling," said Sir Everard, fondly; "no, not you; I couldn't spare you my sweet little fellow."

And he stooped, as he spoke, to kiss the little face that was uplifted so pleadingly to his, the lips that were always so ready to respond to his caresses.

Humphrey had turned away his head, and was gazing intently at his ears of corn.

"Is he jealous, I wonder?" thought Uncle Charlie, peering at the little face under the straw hat, and wondering whether it was a tear he saw shining among the long dark eyelashes.

But before he could make up his mind if it were so, the child's eyes were sparkling with excitement over a curious creature with a thousand legs, which had crawled out of the corn in his hand.

"And now jump up, boys, and come home." Sir Everard, as he spoke, picked up his cane, and taking his brother-in-law's arm, walked slowly on. "We shall have all these feats reproduced, Charlie, of that I am quite sure. Virginie has a nice time before her."

There was very little tea eaten that evening, the children were in such a hurry to get down again to the delectable anecdotes.

But Sir Everard took alarm at Miles's flushed cheeks and bright eyes, and would allow no more exciting stories so close upon bed-time.

"Will you finish about the crocodile to-morrow?" asked Humphrey, creeping up his uncle's leg, as he came to wish him good-night.

"To-morrow I go, my boy," he answered.

"Going to-morrow!" said Humphrey. "What a very short visit!"

"What a very short visit!" echoed Miles, who always thought it incumbent on him to say the same thing as his brother.

"I will pay you a longer visit next time," said Uncle Charlie, as he kissed the two little faces.

"But when will next time be?" persisted Humphrey.

"Yes! when will next time be?" repeated Miles.

"Ah! when indeed?" said Uncle Charlie.

CHAPTER III.

"I have got so many plans in my head, that I think I shall burst," said Humphrey to Miles the next morning, as they stood on the door-steps, watching the dog-cart vanishing in the distance, on its way to the station, with their father and uncle. "Some of the things Uncle Charlie was telling us about would be quite easy for us to do. You wouldn't be afraid, I suppose, to climb up the big tree overhanging the pond where the water-lilies are?"

"No," said Miles, rather doubtfully, "not if you went on first and gave me your hand: but that tree is a long way off—wouldn't one of the trees in the orchard do?"

"Oh, no! it wouldn't be half the fun. Don't you remember the man in the story crawled along the branch that stretched over the water? Well, this tree has a branch hanging right over the pond; and I want to crawl along it, like he did."

"Hadn't we better ask Virginie if we may go all that way alone?" suggested Miles, in the vain hope of putting off the evil moment.

Humphrey, however, did not see the force of this argument, and so they started off.

It was a very hot day, and after they had got out of the farm-yard there was no shade at all.

Humphrey skipped through the meadows and over the gates, and Miles followed him as quickly as he could, but the sun was very hot on his head, and he soon got wearied and fell back.

Humphrey did not perceive how languidly his little brother was following him, till a faint cry from behind reached him.

"Humphie, please stop; I can't keep up to you."

Instantly he ran back.

"I'm so tired, Humphie, and so hot, shall we go home?"

"Go home! why we are close to the pond now. Look, Miles, it is only across that meadow, and the corn-field beyond."

Miles followed the direction of his brother's finger, and his eye rested ruefully on the expanse lying before him, where the sun was scorching up everything.

"I'll try, Humphie," he said, resignedly.

"I tell you what!" exclaimed Humphrey, "I'll carry you!"

Miles felt a little nervous at the prospect, but he did not like to object.

"Just get over the gate," continued Humphrey, "and then I'll carry you across the field, and we'll soon be by the pond, where it will be as cool as possible."

Over the gate they scrambled, and then the elder boy disposed himself to take his little brother in his arms. How shall I describe the intense discomfort of the circumstances under which Miles now found himself!

One of Humphrey's arms was so tightly round his neck, that he almost felt as if he were choking, and the hand of the other grasped one of his legs with a gripe which amounted almost to pain; and still there was a feeling of insecurity about his position which, already very strong while Humphrey was standing still, did not diminish when he began to move.

Humphrey started with a run, but his speed soon slackened, and grave doubts began to arise even in his own mind as to the accomplishment of the task he had undertaken.

However, he staggered on. But when presently his long-suffering load began to show signs of slipping, Humphrey tightened his grasp to such a degree, that Miles, who till now had endured in silence, could endure no longer, and he uttered a faint cry for mercy.

At the same moment, Humphrey caught his foot in a rabbit hole, and both boys rolled over together. Peals of laughter from Humphrey followed the catastrophe, but Miles did not quite enter into the spirit of the joke. He was hot and tired, poor little fellow, and began to implore his brother to take him under the neighboring hedge to rest.

Humphrey readily consented, and led him out of the baking sun.

"Perhaps we had better give it up," said he, sighing, as he sat down by Miles in the shade, "and try again in the cool of the evening. You could do it, couldn't you, if it were not for the heat?"

"Oh, yes," said Miles, eagerly. With a respite in view, he was ready to agree to anything.

"Very well," said Humphrey, "then we'll give it up and come again this evening after tea. I declare," he added, suddenly breaking off, "there's a mushroom out there!"

He was off in a moment, and returned in triumph. "Isn't it a lovely one, Miles? How fresh it smells and how beautiful it peels. If father were at home, we'd have had it cooked for his dinner, he is so fond of mushrooms."

"It wouldn't keep good till Friday, I suppose, for the wild men's dinner party?" enquired Miles.

"One would be no use," answered Humphrey, "but we might come here some morning and get a lot if we brought a basket. I'll tell you what, we'll get up quite, quite early to-morrow, and come and have a regular mushroom hunt. Won't it be fun!"

"I'm afraid Virginie would not be awake to dress me," observed Miles.

"Oh, never mind Virginie!" said Humphrey, "I'll dress you, Miles; I don't think Virginie would care to get up so early, and it would be a pity to wake her, poor thing! She goes to bed late, and is so tired in the morning."

"So she is, poor thing!" said Miles.

"And besides, you know," continued Humphrey, "she always thinks something dreadful will happen if she doesn't come with us, and it would be a pity to frighten her for nothing."

"So it would; a great pity," repeated Miles. "But what's that noise, Humphie? Is it a cock crowing or a bull roaring?"

Both children listened.

There was many a sound to be heard round about on that summer morning; the buzzing of bees as they flitted about among the clover, the chirrup of the grasshoppers in the long grass, the crowing of a cock from the farm, and the lowing of cattle in the distance, but that which had attracted Miles' attention was none of all these. It was the gradually approaching sound of a female voice, which, as its owner neared the meadow, assumed to the two little listeners the familiar tones of the French language.

"M. Humphrey! M. Miles! M. Humphrey! où êtes-vous donc?"

"It's Virginie!" they both exclaimed, jumping up.

Virginie it was; and great was the horror she expressed at their having strayed so far from home, at the state of heat in which she found Miles, and at his having been taken such a long walk.

Many were the reproaches she heaped upon Humphrey as they walked back to the house for having caused her such a hunt in the heat of the sun, and her nerves such a shock as they had experienced when she had not found him and his brother in their usual haunts.

Lastly she brought him up with the inquiry, "Et vos leçons! Savez vous qu'il est midi passé?"

Humphrey's ideas of time were always of the vaguest order, and when anything of so exciting a nature as this morning's expedition came in the way, hours were not in his calculations.

He did not mend matters much by saying he should have thought it had been about half-past nine.

Virginie maintained a dignified silence after this explanation, till they reached the hall door; and it now being too near dinner time to make it worth while for Humphrey to get out his books, she informed him that he would have to do all his lessons in the afternoon.

This was perhaps more of a punishment to Miles than to Humphrey.

Lessons were no trouble to Humphrey when once his attention was fixed on them; and if it were not for the penance of having to sit still in a chair, he did not really dislike them. But to Miles, his brother's lesson hours were times of dreary probation. He was not allowed to speak to him, or distract his attention in any way; and had to sit turning over the leaves of a picture book, or building a solitary castle of bricks, in some part of the room where Humphrey could not see him without regularly turning his head round.

Humphrey made a faint attempt after dinner to persuade Virginie to let him do his lessons in the garden, under the big tree on the lawn; but it was instantly negatived. In the nursery, with his back turned to Miles, she did sometimes succeed in concentrating his attention on his reading; but she knew too much of the all-powerful attractions out of doors to comply with his proposal. Not to mention the chance of Carlo suddenly jumping upon the book, or the tempting vicinity of the gardeners with the mowing machine, there was always risk to his powers of attention in chance butterflies and humble bees, the dropping of a blossom from the tree above, or the sudden advent of a stray water-wag-tail.

Humphrey did not press the question, and opened his book with a slight sigh, for which Virginie could not account.

Was there a memory floating in the child's mind of a time when the same request had never been made in vain?—of summer afternoons, dimly remembered, when, sitting by his mother's side under the same old tree, he had learnt to read words of one syllable out of the baby primer on her knee?—and when, if his attention had sometimes wandered to the summer sights and sounds around him, her gentle "Now, my darling try and attend to your reading," would instantly recall it. And then the quick shutting up of the book when the specified stage had been reached, the fond kiss of dismissal, and the joyous "Now run away, my child, and play to your heart's content!" as if she rejoiced as much as he did that he should be released from his temporary bondage, and disport himself in the sunshine once more!

Great stillness now reigned in the nursery for more than an hour. It was only broken by the monotonous drone of Humphrey's reading, and Virginie's occasional "Tenez-vous bien. Otez donc les bras de la table Ne donnez pas des coups de pied à la chaise"—varied by the fall of Miles's bricks, as he knocked down one completed castle after another, in despair at not being able to call upon his brother to admire them.

As the time at which Humphrey's release was due approached, and there were no signs of moving on Virginie's part, Miles gave vent, at intervals, to deep-drawn sighs.

It came at last; Virginie shut up the book, and put a mark in it, and Humphrey, with a loud "Hurrah," dashed his chair suddenly back, and turned head over heels on the floor.

Miles threw himself upon him, and the two rolled over and over each other, in the "abandon" of perfect enjoyment.

"We'll start for the pond directly after tea," whispered Humphrey.

But Virginie had other plans in view, and to the children's disgust they were taken for a walk with her, to visit the wife of one of the farmers.

The long confinement in the farmer's kitchen, while Virginie and the farmer's wife talked about bonnets and trimmings, was very wearisome to the two boys. Miles found some compensation in the discovery of a tiny kitten on the hearth; and Humphrey, mounting on a chair, played with the trigger of the farmer's gun which hung over the mantelpiece, "just to see whether it was loaded or not."

They did not get home till Miles's bed-time.

Humphrey established himself on the edge of the bath, and watched Virginie carefully as she undressed his little brother, that he might learn how Miles's vestments succeeded each other; for he felt a little doubtful of his own powers as a valet.

His face lengthened considerably when he saw how many strings there would be to tie.

He drew nearer, in his eagerness, as Virginie untied them one after the other; and began considering how to do the untying process backwards, and wondering whether it would produce the desired result.

"Don't be in such a hurry," he called out, in his excitement, as she pulled out the last tie, "I didn't half see."

Virginie's look of astonishment recalled him to himself, and he retreated hastily to his seat on the edge of the bath.

Fortunately for him, she was so taken up with reproving him for speaking to her in English, that she forgot to inquire into his extraordinary interest in the tape strings.

CHAPTER IV.

Little Miles was dreaming on a green bank, on the top of which he and Humphrey were seated, making daisy-chains, when suddenly the midges began to fly in his face in a most disagreeable manner. Buzz, buzz, they came up against his cheeks like hard lumps, and he couldn't drive them away. He turned to Humphrey for assistance, and such a strong gust of wind blew upon one side of his head and face that he fell over on his side and began to slip down the hill. He clutched hold of his brother to save himself, and woke—to find neither bank nor daisies but that Humphrey was dragging him out of bed.

"At last!" whispered Humphrey. "I thought you never were going to wake. I've tried everything! I've thrown bits of biscuit in your face, I've blown into your ear, I've shaken you till I was tired; I couldn't speak, you know, for fear of waking Virginie. Be very quiet, for she's moved once or twice."

"But what do you want, Humphie?" asked Miles, rubbing his eyes. "Why do you get out of bed in the middle of the night?"

"Middle of the night!" echoed Humphrey, "why it's broad daylight! Look at the hole in the shutter, how sunny it is out of doors. I've been lying awake ever since the cock crew, watching the light get brighter and brighter, and——"

But before he had concluded his sentence his weary little brother had settled himself again on his pillow.

"Miles! Miles!" whispered Humphrey in despair, stooping over him.

"Good night, Humphie," said Miles, sleepily.

"Why, you're going to sleep again," said Humphrey in his ear.

"No, I'm not," said the child, dreamily.

"Yes, you are!" exclaimed Humphrey, forgetting, in his excitement, that he was speaking out loud.

"No, I'm not," repeated Miles, trying to seem very wide-awake: but the fringed eyelids drooped over the heavy eyes, and he tried to keep them open in vain.

An ominous stir from the big bed prevented Humphrey from answering, and he watched Virginie nervously, as she rolled over from one side to the other.

Miles took advantage of the pause and fell asleep again directly.

"Wake up! wake up!" said Humphrey, returning to the charge.

Miles sat up in bed.

"What is the matter, Humphie?"

"Nothing's the matter, but don't you remember our delicious plan to get up early and pick mushrooms?"

Miles remembered now, but the plan did not seem so delicious now, somehow, as it had done the day before.

"Get up now, Humphie?" he said dejectedly.

"Yes," answered his energetic brother, "you won't mind it when we're once out in the fields. I'm going to dress you before I dress myself, so be quick and jump up. You'll feel all right when you're out of bed."

Little Miles looked half inclined to cry.

"I'm so sleepy," he said wistfully.

"You'll be better soon," said Humphrey, pulling off the bed-clothes.

"Let's go to-morrow instead, Humphie." Humphrey had turned round to get Miles's boots and stockings, and did not hear this last proposal. When he came back to the bed-side, to his horror, Miles had lain down again.

"What is to be done?" he exclaimed in despair. A sudden thought struck him, and he went quickly off to the other end of the room.

Miles was not quite asleep, and attracted by a clatter, he raised himself to see what his brother was about.

"What are you going to do, Humphie?" he exclaimed, as he saw Humphrey coming slowly across the room with a great jug of water in his arms.

"Why you see," said Humphrey in a loud whisper, and rather out of breath, for he was oppressed by the weight of the water jug, "the best way to wake people is to pour a jug of cold water suddenly on their face, and so——"

"Oh! I'm quite awake now, Humphie; indeed," interrupted Miles, getting out of bed in a great hurry, "you needn't, really. Look at my eyes." And in great trepidation the child opened his large blue eyes to their fullest extent.

Humphrey was satisfied, and put the jug down. Miles would have been happier to see it safely replaced on the distant wash-hand stand, and offered to help to carry it back, if his brother found it too heavy.

He was not much reassured by Humphrey's answer:

"It'll do very well there; and, besides, it's better to have it near, in case you get sleepy again."

The toilette now began in earnest: Humphrey gave Miles his stockings to put on while he proceeded to dress himself, and was all ready but his jacket, when turning round he found Miles in great perplexity, with his toe unaccountably fixed in the place where his heel ought to be.

"I can't get it out, Humphie!"

"I must do it, I suppose," said the elder boy; and he seized the leg, nearly upsetting Miles as he did so, and proceeded to put on the stocking wrong side out.

"It doesn't matter the least," he assured Miles, who was rather discomfited at the bits of thread, and general unfinished appearance of his leg. But what did matter was, that the walking-boots had not, of course, come up from being cleaned.

"Never mind," said Humphrey; "shoes will do."

On came the delicate child's thin in-door shoes, without any reference to the heavy dew and long grass attendant upon mushroom hunting. Miles was then divested of his night-gown, and his under-clothes put on.

All went on smoothly till the first tying of strings, and here Humphrey was completely at fault. It was no use.

"Don't you think you could hold all your things together?" he suggested; "and then I'll pop on your blouse quick, and make the band very tight, to keep it all steady?"

Miles agreed to this plan, as he did to all others, more especially as he found the alternative was the insertion of a huge pin, with which Humphrey offered to "make it all comfortable!"

"I don't know how it is," said little Miles, shaking himself about, "but I don't feel as warm as usual."

"Don't shake like that, Miles," exclaimed Humphrey; "it'll all come down, you know. Get your hat, and let's come along quietly."

"Why! I have had no bath!" said Miles, stopping short.

"No more have I," echoed Humphrey, "I quite forgot! And what's this?" he added, picking up a small flannel shirt.

"Why, it's mine," said Miles.

"So it is," rejoined Humphrey, "of course; that's why you felt cold. Well, we can't wait now. Come along: be very quiet." And the two boys stepped quietly out of the room, and of course left the door wide open behind them.

It was not much more than half-past five by the clock in the hall, and doors and windows were as yet all barred. The light came in fitfully through any chinks or holes it could find, and gave a generally mysterious aspect to the hall and staircase. Little Miles glanced rather timidly round, and drew nearer to his brother, as they passed through the library and billiard-room, as if the unwonted appearance of the familiar apartments threw something of the supernatural round about them.

Any one who has risen at an unusual hour, and come into the sitting-rooms before the household is stirring, will understand something of the child's feeling. The chairs and tables are undergoing a phase which to them is familiar, but which is quite strange to us.

We only know them as in connection with ourselves, and do not dream that they have an existence in which we are not, with which we have nothing to do. We know them in the busy day and in the lighted room at night; but with the grey dawn creeping in upon them they are quite strangers, and even mysterious.

Hans Christian Andersen recognized and expressed this feeling when he laid the scene of one of his fairy tales in a drawing-room at dead of night, and endowed the inanimate objects in the room with the attributes of human beings.

The two little brothers found their way out by the conservatory, and went to the tool-house to fetch some baskets, before setting out for the mushroom fields.

The dew was heavy on flowers and grass and when they got into the meadow, their feet, and legs got very wet.

At sight of the first batch of mushrooms in the distance, Humphrey got wild, and with a scream of joy he bounded towards it. From one batch to another he sped, picking as fast as he could, and was soon out of sight.

Humphrey had it all to himself, for Miles could not keep up, and he was soon left far behind with his basket. He was a little disconcerted at first, when he saw Humphrey gradually getting further and further away; but having satisfied himself by a hasty glance round the field, that there were no bulls near, he became reconciled to his solitude, and began to fill his basket, humming a little tune to himself as he did so.

He was rather surprised, as he went along, to see how many mushrooms Humphrey had left untouched. They were such lovely ones too! all red and yellow outside, and white inside, and so huge!

He filled his basket with them in great triumph, and then sat down under a tree to wait for Humphrey's return.

The early morning air was rather fresh, and he began to feel a little cold without his flannel shirt. His feet, too, were very wet, and he got up to take a little run to warm himself. He caught sight of Humphrey coming towards him, and ran to meet him.

"Oh, Humphie! I've got such a lot, and such beauties! Come and see them under the tree."

"Look here!" said Humphrey, holding up his basket; "did you ever see such a quantity?"

Miles looked a little nervously at the white exteriors of Humphrey's mushrooms.

"Mine are quite different, Humphie."

"You haven't been picking fungus, I hope?" exclaimed Humphrey, stopping short.

"Oh, no!" said Miles, quickly—"at least I don't think I have," he added doubtfully, "But what is fungus, Humphie?"

"Toadstools," answered Humphrey, "horrid big yellow toads; there are lots of them about in the fields. Where are they, Miles? Show them to me, quick!"

"They're under the trees," said Miles; and both boys set off running.

"Toads, every one!" proclaimed Humphrey, emptying the basket on the ground. "Not one mushroom in the lot. Why, Miles! do you know they're poison?"

Miles stood aghast—the awe of the announcement completely softening the disappointment.

"It's lucky I saw them before they were cooked," continued Humphrey, in a tone of great solemnity; "fancy, if all the wild men had been poisoned! It would have been your fault."

"Oh, Humphie!" said little Miles, in terror, "let's throw them away."

"We'll smash them," said Humphrey; "and that'll do as well."

So they made a heap of the fungus, and stamped upon them till their shoes and stockings were covered with the nasty compound.

"What will Virginie say?" laughed Humphrey, as he looked at his legs.

"What will she say?" echoed Miles, delighted. Suddenly he stopped short. "Humphie! I never said my prayers!"

"Good gracious! No more have I."

"What shall we do? We shall have to go home. It wouldn't be right, I suppose, to say them out of doors?"

"No harm at all," said Humphrey; "let's say them under the tree."

And, suiting the action to the word, with his usual promptitude, Humphrey knelt down; but he was up again directly.

"I was going to tell you, Miles, that we'd better take off our hats while we say them; every one does when they go to church; which, of course, you don't know, as you're too young to go there."

Miles received the information with great respect, and began to disentangle his elastic from his hair.

"Not yet!" exclaimed Humphrey; "wait till we kneel down; I'll tell you when."

Miles kept his eyes fixed upon Humphrey, with his hand on the brim of his hat, ready to take it off at the expected signal.

"Now!" said Humphrey. Down knelt the two little brothers on the grass, baring their curly heads as they did so.

Little Miles was accustomed to repeat his prayer after Virginie, and did not know it by heart; and he was in great perplexity till Humphrey had finished, not knowing whether it would be best to remain kneeling or not.

In about five minutes Humphrey jumped up and put on his hat. Miles rose too, and confided his troubles. Humphrey instantly gave the subject his earnest attention.

"It would never do for you to say my prayer after me," he said, reflectively; "you're too young."

"Too young," repeated Miles, meekly.

"And I've forgotten my baby prayer, of course," continued Humphrey; "it's so very very long since I used to say it—— I'll tell you what, Miles, you might say your grace!"

"My grace?" said Miles, rather scared; "why, that isn't prayers, is it, Humphie?"

"Oh, yes, it is," answered Humphrey; "in your little book of 'Prayers for Children,' your grace has got at the top of it, 'A prayer after meat.' Meat, you know, means breakfast, dinner, and tea; even if you only have bread and butter, or sop."

"Does it?" exclaimed Miles. "I thought meat was only beef and mutton—hardly chicken!"

"Ah! but it does, though," said Humphrey, in a superior tone; "you don't know, Miles. There's lots of things you don't know yet. Why you thought grace wasn't prayers, and yet it is. Now say this after me: 'For what I have received, may the Lord make me truly thankful.'"

"Why! that's your grace, Humphie, not mine! Mine is only, 'Thank God for my good breakfast.'"

"That will do," said Humphrey.

"But, Humphie! I've not had my breakfast! How can I say it?"

"To be sure," said Humphrey, reflectively, "that makes it very awkward. You've not even had a bit of bread. If you'd only had a biscuit, it would have done—it's very unlucky."

He remained for some minutes in an attitude of deep thought.

"I know!" he exclaimed suddenly; "I always say a grace before my meals, and of course you'll have some breakfast presently, so you can say my grace after me. It's very difficult for you, of course; but still, if I say it very slowly, you can manage to do it. Now listen very attentively: 'For what I am going to receive, may the Lord make me truly thankful.'"

Miles knelt down and repeated the little prayer, and then the two little brothers sat down on the grass, and counted their mushrooms, to see how' many there would be for the wild men apiece.

Meanwhile Virginie, awakened by the rush of cold air caused by the open door, sat up in bed and looked about her.

The two little nightgowns on the floor and the jug of water in the middle of the room, first attracted her attention; but the room being partially dark, she did not perceive that the children had disappeared. She got up and opened the shutters, and then stood staring at the empty beds, the sheets and blankets scattered in all directions. And then she advanced hurriedly to Humphrey's bed, to see if the children were hidden beneath it. She looked also under the wardrobe, behind the curtains, in the toy cupboard. But her astonishment changed to alarm when she found their clothes were missing, and she ran into the day-nursery, and hung over the stairs shouting, "M. Humphrey! M. Miles!"

Not being dressed, she could not go down, so she rang the bell violently, and began to put on her things as quickly as she could.

The housemaid who answered the bell could give no account of the young gentlemen, but volunteered to search the house for them.

While she was absent Virginie's eyes fell on Miles's flannel shirt, and she wrung her hands in despair.

"They must have gone out," said the housemaid, returning; "the conservatory door is wide open, and so is the outer door."

"Impossible!" stuttered Virginie, in her broken English; "their walking boots have not mounted; they have not but the thin shoes of the house!"

"They must be out," repeated the housemaid, "for I've hunted every corner. Have they taken their hats?"

Virginie strode across the room, and opened a drawer.

"Mon Dieu!" she exclaimed, when she saw it was empty.

"But, I say," she continued, gesticulating violently with both hands, "that M. Miles will catch the cold, the cough, the croup. See there, Jeanne! he has not the flannel shirt he carries always. His chest will inflame. He will die!"

She began to put on her bonnet.

"There they are!" exclaimed Jane, who had gone to the window. "Look there! out in that field!"

"In the fields? sitting on the wet grass!" said Virginie in horror, as she distinguished the two little figures in the distance, seated under a tree. "Entrez, entrez, à l'instant!" she screamed to the children, though they were much too far off to hear. She seized her shawl and ran down-stairs.

The little boys were coming homewards when she got into the garden, and she hurried on to meet them. Miles had hold of his brother's hand, and was walking rather wearily; but Humphrey, with his head still full of the success of his morning sport, disregarded alike Miles's languor and Virginie's infuriated appearance.

"Regardez!" he shouted in triumph, holding up his basket of mushrooms.

At the sight of Miles's wet boots and flushed cheeks, Virginie forgot all the reproaches she had prepared for Humphrey and merely with lofty disdain confiscating his mushrooms, she took Miles up in her arms and carried him home.

Humphrey trotted along by her side, entreating to have his basket restored, but she took no notice of him.

She carried Miles straight up into the nursery, and began to undress him. He presented a curious appearance when his blouse was taken off—strings all knotted together, buttons forced into the wrong holes, and hooks clinging to outlets that were never intended for them.

Miles yawned all the time, and sneezed once or twice, each time provoking from Virginie an exclamation, half of alarm and half of anger.

"You needn't scold Miles," called out Humphrey, who was being washed in the distance by the nursery-maid; "he didn't want to come—it was all me."

When they were dressed again, the two little culprits were seated to their breakfast, but forbidden to hold any communication with each other except in French.

It was rather a slow ending to so pleasant a beginning, especially as after breakfast Miles was so tired that he had to lie down, and Humphrey was hardly allowed to move for fear of disturbing him.

Virginie would not let them out of her sight for the rest of the day, and they took a dull walk in the afternoon, one on each side of her.

Towards evening, Miles gave forth an ominous cough, and was decidedly croupy at night.

Virginie's nerves always deserted her when the delicate boy was ill in his father's absence, and towards the middle of the next day she could stand it no longer, and sent off for the doctor.

Humphrey was very remorseful when Virginie informed him it was his fault that Miles was unwell, and remained in a state of great depression for about three minutes. But the sight of the doctor's gig coming up the avenue sent it all out of his head, and he dashed down-stairs, three steps at a time, to receive him at the hall door.

"Well, Doctor," he called out; "how are you? Why, you've got new harness to your horse! How jolly and clean it looks."

"New harness?—yes," said the doctor, dismounting; "but tell me what's the matter with your brother?"

"Oh, it was the mushrooms," said Humphrey, vaguely, and with his eyes running over the new reins and straps. "I wonder how long they'll look so fresh and clean?"

"Mushrooms!" exclaimed the doctor; "you don't mean to say they let that delicate child eat mushrooms? Has he got an attack of indigestion?"

"Oh, no," said Humphrey, springing down the steps and patting the horse; "a pain in his chest, I think. How glossy his coat is to-day, isn't it?"

"Same thing—same thing," said the doctor; "and I'm sure I don't wonder, if they let him eat mushrooms."

Humphrey burst out laughing, having for the first time given his attention to what the doctor was saying.

"Why, they were raw!" he said.

"Raw mushrooms!" exclaimed the doctor, "who could have allowed him to eat them?"

"But he didn't eat any," said Humphrey, convulsed. And he rolled about so, as he laughed at the doctor's mistake, that he knocked up against the horse, who immediately plunged.

"Take care, my dear child," said the doctor, pulling him away; "you mustn't frighten black Bob—he won't stand it. But, tell me," he continued, drawing the boy into the hall, "Why did you say the mushrooms had given him a pain in his chest?"

"It was the flannel shirt——" began Humphrey; but at the sound of hoofs on the gravel outside, he broke off suddenly: "Oh there's black Bob plunging again; I must go and see—let me go, please." He broke from the doctor's grasp, and ran back to the door, calling out as he did so: "It might have been the flannel shirt, perhaps, if it wasn't the shoes; but we were in such a hurry."

Despairing of getting any sense out of him, the doctor let him go, and pursued his way up-stairs, where he had full details from Virginie.

He did not think Miles very bad, but ordered him to be kept in two rooms for the rest of the week.

I need hardly say that when he came down again Humphrey had persuaded the groom to let him get into the gig, and there he was in the broiling sun without his hat, driving black Bob round and round the approach.

CHAPTER V.

Little Miles was terribly disappointed to find his confinement up-stairs would extend over the day of the dinner-party, but there was no help for it.

The eventful Friday arrived, and Humphrey was on the fidget all day. He paid constant visits to the dining-room and library, and even intruded into the kitchen; but he could see nothing in any of the preparations going on which at all differed from those usual.

"I suppose, for once they will eat like civilized people," he told Miles—after visit one hundred and fourth down-stairs, in the vain hope of finding something new.

"Yes, just for a treat," suggested little Miles; and they amused themselves for the next few hours by imagining the astonishment of the wild men at all the different things they would see.

Sir Everard arrived late, and went straight up to Miles's room. It so happened that he did not see Humphrey, as he was under the hands of Virginie, in preparation for his appearance in company; and as several of the guests had already arrived, Sir Everard had only just time to kiss Miles, and to hurry off to his dressing-room, from whence he descended to the library. So that the conversation of the preceding week, and the children's excitement over the prospect of the aborigines, had entirely escaped his memory, for want of the refreshing it would have been sure to have received had he had time for a word with either of his little boys.

He was deep in politics with an old gentleman in a broad expanse of satin waistcoat, and a general buzz of conversation was going on all over the room, when the library door was flung open with a bounce, and Humphrey appeared in the doorway.

Fresh from Virginie's improving hand, in velveteen clothes, white waistcoat, and light blue tie, with his brown hair brushed back from his bright face, and his eyes sparkling with excitement, he looked like a being of another sphere, among the rusty old gentlemen congregated in the room.

Many of them turned round to look at the pretty boy, and more than one held out a hand of greeting.

But, to Sir Everard's annoyance, Humphrey, whose manners were usually perfect, took not the slightest notice of any of these overtures.

He stood at the door as if spell-bound, gazing around him with an expression of intense surprise, wonder, and disappointment.

"Humphrey," said Sir Everard, "why don't you come and say 'How do you do?' to these gentlemen?"

"Father," exclaimed the boy, in a clear treble voice, that was heard all over the room, "where are the wild men?"

The ghastly truth flashed across Sir Everard's mind, as the boy asked the question. The recollection of the children's conversation with their uncle came back to him, and he was at his wit's end.

"Wild men, Humphrey?" he said, with a sickly smile, "what are you dreaming about? There are no wild men here."

"You know what I mean, father," the child answered, in the same clear voice, making his way straight across the room to Sir Everard; "the wild men of the woods, that you and Uncle Charlie were talking about last Saturday, and who you said you were going to have to dinner. There were two long words, and the one I mean—means wild men. It was a very long word, the a—abo——"

"Constituents?" gasped the baronet.

Fortunately for Sir Everard's seat in Parliament, the two long words, heard for the first time that Saturday, had confused themselves in the boy's mind, and he answered "I suppose it was—but I thought it began with an 'a.'"

"And you thought 'constituents' meant 'wild men?'" pursued his father, eagerly following up his advantage, while the guests laughed. "Why did you not ask me, or look it out in the dictionary? Though, to be sure," concluded the baronet, appealing to the bystanders, "I don't know that it would have been easy to make it clear to a child of seven."

"No, indeed," answered one or two.

"But why should he think it meant wild men?" asked another, laughingly.

"A child's natural love of the extraordinary, I suppose," answered Sir Everard, "the unknown is always the marvellous, and ignorance is always the most easily deceived."

He hardly knew if he was talking sense or not; he only felt he must provide an answer of some kind, and having silenced his questioner, he breathed freely again. But there was an only half-satisfied expression on Humphrey's face which alarmed his father: and dreading that he should cast his thoughts back, and by raking up something else that had been said on that fatal occasion furnish to the assembled guests the clue to the conversation, he drew the boy to him, and told him he had better run back to his brother.

It still wanted five minutes to dinner; and he felt there was no peace of mind for him, as long as Humphrey remained in the room.

As if to atone for his unceremonious entry, Humphrey seemed determined that his exit should be more in accordance with the rules of society; for he advanced to the fat gentleman next his father, and holding out his hand wished him "good night;" then, proceeding to the next in order, he did likewise.

"Is he going to shake hands with every single one?" thought Sir Everard, in despair, as his eyes wandered from one to another of his twenty guests, dispersed all over the library.

There could be no doubt about it. Patiently and methodically Humphrey went through his task. Not one was overlooked—not one was left out.

No matter if one was standing apart, at the other end of the room, another deep in a volume of prints, and two more tête-à-tête in a political discussion. Humphrey thought nothing of pursuing the first, rousing the second, and disturbing the others. The inevitable "good-night" rang out all down the room, and the inevitable little palm was outstretched.

Sir Everard ever afterwards looked back to those slow moments of torture, as to a sort of hideous nightmare. Each minute was laden with anxiety, each new handshaking fraught with danger, each conversation that a guest opened with the child, a fresh source of fear.

Interminable moments! The hands of the clock seemed as if they would never move, the gong seemed as if it would never sound, and he stood in despair, watching the little figure pursuing its triumphal progress down the room, and listening to the patronizing tones in which one and the other rallied the boy on his mistake.

"So you thought you were going to see a lot of wild men, young gentleman?"

"Uncle Charlie told me so," was the answer.

Sir Everard fidgeted from one leg to the other. ("Only thirteen more," he observed to himself.)

"And you're quite disappointed?" said the next one, laughing.

"Yes," said Humphrey; "there isn't much to see in a lot of gentlemen in black coats."

("Only twelve now," reflected the baronet.)

"It was a joke of uncle's, I suppose," said a paterfamilias, in a consoling tone—and Sir Everard beat the ground nervously with his foot.

"A very stupid joke," said Humphrey, with which opinion his father fervently agreed.

It ended at last. The gong sounded, the last "good night" was said, and with an indescribable sense of relief Sir Everard saw the little figure disappear. But he did not recover himself all the evening. It was remarked that he was silent and abstracted during the dinner, and the guests shook their heads, and observed that he had never got over his wife's death. He was truly thankful when the party broke up, and the strain was over.

He could not pass the bedroom nursery without taking a look at Miles. He was sleeping peacefully, but various sounds, as if of sobbing, came from the other little bed.

Sir Everard laid his hand on the sheet, but it was held tight, and the curly head hidden beneath it. "Why, Humphrey, my little man, what is the matter?"

Very inarticulate sounds succeeded, but by dint of great patience, the baronet distinguished among the sobs that, "he was afraid Uncle Charlie would go to hell, for telling such a dreadful story, and he couldn't bear to think of it!"

CHAPTER VI.

Virginie waylaid Sir Everard on his way down to breakfast next morning, to beg him to speak to Humphrey on the subject of leading Miles into mischief.

The baronet acquiesced with a sigh. It was a job he particularly disliked. In the short time he was able to be with his children, he enjoyed seeing them all life and happiness; and he hated to bring a cloud over their bright faces.

Humphrey was hanging out of the window when his father went into the dining room, and Sir Everard was half afraid of calling him away, for fear of startling him, and causing him to fall out; but at the sound of his father's footsteps, the boy drew himself in and bounded towards him.

"Why did you not come and help me to dress this morning?" said Sir Everard, as he kissed him.

Humphrey looked rather bored. "Virginie wouldn't let me," he answered; "she thought it would be a good punishment."

Here was an opening! Sir Everard felt he ought not to let it slip.

"Punishment!" said he, trying to look very solemn; "I am sorry to hear you deserved punishing. Why, what have you been doing?"

Humphrey looked up to the ceiling, down to the ground, and all round the room. "I can't remember what it was, father!"

Sir Everard tried hard not to smile. "What is the use of scolding such a boy," thought he; "a child who does not even remember for what offence he is suffering?"

"Stop a minute!" cried Humphrey, who was still in an attitude of reflection, "perhaps I shall remember presently."

He ran over his recent misdemeanors in his head, checking them off with his fingers and his father, seeing it was likely to be a long job, sat down to breakfast.

"Well, Humphrey!" he questioned, after a pause, "have you remembered?"

"No, I can't," answered the boy, "but I'm sure Virginie will. Shall I run up and ask her?"

Sir Everard was amused, but a little provoked. It seemed such a hopeless task ever to make an impression upon Humphrey. But he only said, "No, you need not do that; I think I can tell you a little about it. Come and sit down here."

Sir Everard turned the tap of the urn, and put on the longest face he could think of. "I am sorry to hear from Virginie," he began, looking full at Humphrey, so as to make sure he was gaining his attention, "that you have——"

He stopped in despair, for Humphrey's eyes had wandered to the tap, and his mind was intent on the running water.

"Are you listening to me, Humphrey?"

"Take care!" was all Humphrey's answer jumping up from his chair, and clapping his hands; "turn it off! quick! look! look! father!"

There was no help for it, Sir Everard had to break off his discourse, and attend to the water, which was running all over the table, and the boy's laughter was so infectious that he joined heartily in it.

"I give it up," he said to himself; "it's no use trying to make an impression on anything so volatile."

"It served you quite right, father," said Humphrey, "for not letting me turn on the tap. You know quite well Miles and I always take turns to do it. Oh! I wish it would happen again!" And at the recollection, the merry laugh broke out once more.

But the mention of the little prisoner up-stairs, recalled Sir Everard to a sense of his duty, for Miles was suffering for his brother's thoughtlessness. So he gave Humphrey a long lecture on leading his brother astray and threatened him with the continual espionage of Virginie in the garden if he had any more complaints of the kind.

Humphrey sat looking very mournful while the discourse lasted, and was vehement in his promises that it should never happen again.

"Till next time, I suppose," said the baronet, laughing; and then he gave him some bread and honey and took up the newspaper.

He felt rather proud of the effect he had produced, for Humphrey ate his bread and honey in silence, and seemed very thoughtful.

"Boys will not attend to the maids," he reflected; "there is nothing like the authority of a parent after all."

In about five minutes, Humphrey's meditations came to a close.

"Father!"

"What, my boy," said Sir Everard, putting down the paper, in anticipation of some penitent speech, and mentally saying, "I did not mean him to take it so much to heart, poor child!"

"If you had lived in the times of the Wars of the Roses, which side would you have taken?"

Sir Everard was rather taken aback. In the first place, because it was rather a shock to his feelings to find, after all, how little impression he had made; and in the second, he was by no means so familiar with that part of history as to be able to give his opinion in a hurry. He would not, however, lower himself in the boy's estimation by allowing his ignorance.

"Wars of the Roses," he repeated, to gain a little time for reflection; "have you been learning a great deal about them lately?"

"Yes," said Humphrey, with a sigh; "Virginie seems very fond of them. Is it true that unless I remember all the battles of the Wars of the Roses, I shall never be able to go into parliament?"

"Does Virginie say so?" enquired Sir Everard.

"Yes," said Humphrey. "She says, of course all the members of parliament know the names at the tips of their fingers and could say them in order; and which were won by Yorkists and which by Lancastrians."

Sir Everard felt very thankful that he held his seat on less frail a tenure, and sincerely hoped his son was not going to put him to the test. Vain hope!

"I suppose, of course, father, you could say them right off?"

"It's almost a pity to stay indoors such a fine day," said the baronet, hastily; "suppose you get your hat and run out in the garden."

Yorkists and Lancastrians at once vanished from Humphrey's head, and he was off. But when he was gone, Sir Everard took down a volume of English History, and studied it for the rest of the morning.

After luncheon, Sir Everard proposed to take Humphrey out riding.

Little Miles looked very disconsolate when the horses came to the door, and he found himself condemned to a solitary afternoon, but seemed somewhat cheered by a long-whispered confabulation that his brother had with him before starting.

At three o'clock Sir Everard and Humphrey mounted, and as they went along the road, the following conversation took place:—

"Will you pass through the town, father; because I've got some shopping to do?"

"Shopping! why what do you want to buy?"

"It's such a very great secret, that I don't think I can tell you. But perhaps you can keep a secret?"

"Yes, I think I may promise to keep it."

"Well, then, I'll tell you. It's a birthday present for you. And what would you like? But you must promise not to tell any one."

"No one shall know: but I think I would rather you chose for me; what you like, I shall like."

"Well, now, I don't think you would. You see, I should like a pop-gun, or some nine-pins. Now you would not care for either of those, would you?"

Sir Everard admitted that he was getting a little old for these amusements.

"I thought so!" pursued Humphrey, delighted with his own discrimination, "and that's what makes it so difficult. You've got a watch and a thermometer, and all the other things grown-up men have, so it is very puzzling."

"But, my dear child, all the things you mention are very expensive, far beyond your little means, I should think. Why, how much money have you got?"

"Well! that's just the awkward part; I have not got any! But I thought perhaps you wouldn't mind giving me some, as it is for your own birthday present."

Sir Everard laughed.

"Rather an expensive way of having birthday presents."

"I don't think it will be very expensive," said the practical Humphrey; "but of course it depends on what I buy. Here is the shop, father; please stop."

They pulled up before one of those little nondescript shops to be found in every small country-town.

"Now mind," said Humphrey, as he jumped down from his pony, "mind you don't peep through the door, because you might see me looking at things on the counter."

He waited for a moment till he had exacted a promise from Sir Everard, and then ran into the shop.

"I want something for a grown-up man," he said, as he advanced to the counter.

The shop-woman did her best to show everything she thought likely to suit, but Humphrey was not at all satisfied with the choice. His restless eyes wandered all over the shop. "Have not you got anything for a man to put in his pocket?" he asked.

An inspiration seized the woman, and she advanced to the window.

"Take care!" called out Humphrey, to the woman's great surprise, as she began to take down some things.

"Please don't," he continued, in an agony, as, startled by his shout, she remained, with a compass in one hand and a purse in the other.

"Father's out there, and he'll see what you take down, and guess it's for his birthday present."

The woman humbly begged his pardon, but it was too late; Humphrey would not look at either purse or compass. "You've spoilt it all," he said; "he must have seen."

He remained leaning disconsolately against the counter, gazing with no friendly eye on the rapidly increasing heap of goods which the patient woman produced from all corners of the shop for his inspection.

"Have you got a husband?" he asked, suddenly.

To Humphrey's horror, the woman put up her apron to her eyes, and began to cry.

"Oh! I'm so sorry," said he; "I didn't mean to make you cry, really. I see now you've got a cap on, so of course he's dead. I'm very sorry he's dead," he continued after a pause, "because I was going to say perhaps he would have been able to tell me what a grown-up man would like." Then, afraid he had been unfeeling, he added, "Of course, I'm sorry too, because it seems to make you unhappy. You don't remember, I suppose," he went on, doubtfully, and eyeing the widow carefully, to see how far he might go without fear of a fresh outburst, "what he used to like for his birthday presents?"

The woman cast her thoughts back to the memory of the defunct, and the prominent idea connected with him being tobacco-smoke, she suggested a cigar-case.

Humphrey was delighted at the idea.

"You don't mean to say they're in the window!" he exclaimed in despair.

The widow was obliged to admit that it was too true.

"What are we to do!" said Humphrey, dejectedly. "I know!" he added, the next moment running to the door.

"Father!" he shouted, "would you mind turning your head away for a minute, because we're going to get something out of the window."

Sir Everard immediately became engrossed with the door of the opposite public-house, to the great discomfiture of one of his gardeners, who was issuing therefrom, slightly inebriated, and had been doing his best to escape the baronet's notice.

Humphrey was delighted with the cigar-cases. They were so brilliant in their embroidered covers. He was particularly attracted by the smallest and smartest.

"It will hold so very few cigars," suggested the woman, "had you not better have a larger one?"

"Oh, that doesn't matter the least," said Humphrey, "because father doesn't smoke. As long as it is smart and pretty to put into his pocket, it will do very well. Wrap it up, please, so as to hide it quite, in case he should guess by the shape."

The widow wrapped it in several covers, and Humphrey left the shop.

"You did not see, father, I hope," he said earnestly, as he mounted his pony, and Sir Everard assured him he had not once looked towards the window.

"How much?" asked the baronet, as the parcel was handed up.

"Ten-and-sixpence," answered the shop-woman.

Sir Everard hid his feelings, and paid the money.

"Isn't it cheap?" said Humphrey, as they rode off, "considering it's all embroidered with gold, and ... oh! dear me! I hope you haven't guessed by that?"

"Far from it," answered Sir Everard; "I am more puzzled than ever; for I can't conceive what you could have found in that little shop, that would be all embroidered with gold."

Humphrey was in great glee. "You haven't the slightest idea, I suppose, father what it is?"

"Not the remotest."

"So I know something you don't. You often tell me you know so many things I know nothing about. Now it is just the other way, isn't it?"

"Just the other way," answered the baronet, and Humphrey rode on in a state of great elation.

"It's a dreadful thing to have a secret," he observed presently, after having once or twice begun to speak, and stopped short.

"Why?" inquired his father, smiling.

"Oh! so dreadfully difficult to keep," he answered. "Two or three times I've been beginning to talk about it, and forgetting you weren't to know."

"Let's talk of something else then."

Another pause, and then Humphrey said: "Do you know, father, I think you had better take me home?"

"Home already! are you tired?"

"No—it isn't that; but I know if I wait much longer, I shall be telling you the secret before I can stop myself. If I only could tell some one, I should be all right; so that's why I want to get home to Miles."

"But I want to call on General Colville and also to pay old Dyson a visit. Can you last a little longer, do you think?"

Humphrey was fond of society, and so took very kindly to the arrangement.

"Dyson is the old deaf man, isn't he? Was he born deaf?"

"No; it is only of late years that he has become so."

"I'm glad I wasn't born deaf. It would have been a great bore. I wonder Dyson doesn't buy an ear-trumpet."

"I suppose, poor fellow, he can't afford it."

"I should so like to give him one."

"But where's your money?"

"Ah! there it is again. I never do have any money."

"I gave you a shilling a very little while ago."

"I bought copper caps, and hard-bake."

"Ah! we can't eat our cake, and have it, you know."

"Not cake, father—hardbake!"

"It's all the same. Now, if you were to save up your money, instead of buying trash, you would be able to buy useful things."

"So I will. I'll begin saving directly; the very next shilling you give me, I'll put away, and go on till I've got enough to buy Dyson an ear-trumpet."

"That will be a very good plan."

"When do you suppose you'll be giving me another shilling, father?"

"Ah! that I don't know at all."

"Hadn't you better be beginning pretty soon? because an ear-trumpet will cost a good deal, and it would be a pity to keep old Dyson waiting."

Sir Everard handed him a shilling, saying, as he did so: "Now, mind, it is not to be spent on anything else," and Humphrey faithfully promised it should not.

Old Dyson was in his garden when they passed, so they drew up to speak to him He was not so deaf as to be unable to hear Sir Everard's powerful shout, but Humphrey's little attempts were futile.

"How pleased he'd be," thought Humphrey to himself, "if he knew I was going to save up my money to buy him an ear-trumpet."

And he held up his shilling to the old man in triumph, as if the very sight of it would tell him the whole story.

Dyson smiled and nodded. "Ay, ay, going to buy sweeties, I see!"

Humphrey shook his head vehemently, and tried to shout an explanation.

"No!" said the old man; "then it'll be a top, maybe?"

It was no use trying to make him understand; and as Sir Everard was moving off, Humphrey was obliged to follow, shaking his head to the last.

"It would never do to tell old Dyson a secret," he observed to his father, when he overtook him.

"Why not?"

"Why, you'd have to scream it so loud in his ear that every one would hear. It wouldn't be much of a secret when all the village was listening. Supposing I were to shout to him, 'Dyson, I'm going to give father a birthday present, and it's a cigar ca——.' Oh, good gracious!" said Humphrey, pulling up his pony, "I've told you my secret! Oh, father, did you guess?"

Sir Everard's attention had been wandering, and he could honestly assure the child that he was as far as ever from knowing the secret.

"And now, here we are at General Colville's," he added; "so you will have lots of things to distract your thoughts."

Sir Everard and Humphrey were shown into the drawing-room where were two ladies and some children.

Mrs. Colville came forward to receive them, and informed Sir Everard that her husband was confined to his room with a slight attack of gout.

Sir Everard immediately volunteered to go and see him. Mrs. Colville took him up-stairs, and Humphrey was left with the other lady.

"What is your name, dear?" she asked.

"I'm Humphrey Duncombe," he answered, seating himself by her side. "Who are you?"

"I'm Mrs. Colville's sister," she answered, smiling. "I suppose you don't remember me, but I have seen you before, at your grandmother's, at Banleigh. I live close by."

"I wonder if you could keep a secret?" said Humphrey eagerly.

"Yes, dear, I think so; but why? Have you got one to tell me?"

"A very great one. I've never had one before, and I don't like it at all. I must tell some one, or else I shall be telling it to father, you know."

"But why not tell your father? Surely he would be the best person."

"Tell father! Mrs. Colville's sister? Why, he's just the very person who isn't to know."

"Mrs. Colville's sister" had been half afraid she was going to be made the confidante of some boyish escapade which the child had concealed from his father; but Humphrey's open face disarmed suspicion, and she listened attentively while he poured forth his tale.

It was necessary to listen attentively, for, in the first place, Humphrey was in such a hurry to get to his point, that he rather slurred over the necessary explanations; and, in the second place, he insisted on whispering it all in her ear, on account of the presence of the children.

He had just finished his story, and she was making solemn protestations of the strictest secrecy, when Mrs. Colville came back.

"You must not tell even her you know," concluded Humphrey; and, with a sigh of relief, he sat down again.

Mrs. Colville was one of those mothers who are always fancying other children are better dressed than their own. She was a great copyist, and an unscrupulous borrower of patterns.

Virginie held her in abhorrence. She had once asked for the pattern of Miles's blouse, and Virginie had never forgotten or forgiven Sir Everard's ready acquiescence.

Mrs. Colville and her family came to the same church as the Duncombes, and it was almost more than Virginie could stand to see other children dressed like her young gentlemen.

Mrs. Colville—blinded, a little, like most mothers—did not see that what suited Humphrey and Miles, both exceedingly pretty children, did not have quite the same effect on her nice, but decidedly plain, little boys, and went steadily on. Whatever appeared on Humphrey's graceful figure one Sunday, was sure to be reproduced on some fat little Colville the next.

Men do not notice these things. Sir Everard was quite unaware of what went on, but, to Virginie, it was a constant source of annoyance.

"That's a pretty suit," said Mrs. Colville examining Humphrey's clothes.

"Very," returned her sister; "they fit so well."

"Come here, Clement," said Mrs. Colville to a little boy in the distance; "there, don't you see, Mary, how differently his things set?"

Mary saw well enough, and saw too that it was figure and not clothes that made such a difference between the two boys, but she did not like to wound her sister's maternal vanity by saying so.

"Does your French bonne make your clothes, dear?" Mrs. Colville inquired of Humphrey.

"Not mine," he answered—"only Miles's. Mine," he added with great pride, "come from a London tailor's."

"Do you happen to remember his name?"

"Swears and Wells," answered Humphrey; "I went there once to see 'Gulliver.' I advise you to go and see him when you are in London. You can't think how jolly he is!"

"I suppose, of course, you don't remember the direction?" Of course Humphrey didn't.

"Stop a bit," he said, all of a sudden. "I've seen the direction written somewhere quite lately. Where could I have seen it? Why, since I've been in this room I've read it."

"Impossible, my dear child," said Mrs. Colville, laughing.

"But I have really," getting up from his chair in his excitement; "I've seen the number and the name of the street written somewhere in this drawing-room."

"You must be dreaming, dear."

"No, I'm quite sure I did. Now where could it have been? Did I go near the writing-table?" As he spoke, he advanced. "Or, stop, here are some cards. Did I see it written on a card?"

"No; I assure you Swears and Wells are not visitors of mine."

Humphrey was determined not to give it up, and in spite of the laughter of both ladies, he got up, went to the door, and made his entry all over again, that he might see what he could have passed on the way that might have had the direction on it.

He reflected out loud as he went along: "I came in here and passed the table (no, not on the books, or the work-basket, or the flower-stand). Then I stood by the piano a minute, while father was shaking hands with Mrs. Colville (no, not on the piano or the music). Then I shook hands with Mrs. Colville, then I sat down on the sofa by her sister, and put my hat by my side so—and——Oh!" he exclaimed, so suddenly that he startled both ladies, "here it is, written inside my hat! That's where I saw it—look! a little ticket: 'Swears and Wells, 192 Regent Street.' Ain't you glad, Mrs. Colville? Now you'll be able to find the shop. Hadn't you better write it down?"

He was heart and soul in the subject, and did not perceive the amusement he gave.

What would Virginie's feelings have been could she have seen the name, number and address, copied with great accuracy into Mrs. Colville's "Where is it?" and to make sure there should be no mistake, this memorandum added: "a suit such as was lately made for Sir E. Duncombe's little boy"?

This was just accomplished when Sir Everard came back.

"I'm afraid the General is in for a sharp attack, Mrs. Colville."

"I am afraid he is—he is so very imprudent. You know my sister, Sir Everard?"

Sir Everard advanced with a smile of recognition.

"Is it possible you are little Mary Wilberforce? I didn't recognize you just now, you are grown out of all recollection. To be sure, it is a long time since I saw you—three or four years, isn't it?"

Mary said something about it being a long time, but she did not like to particularize the date, though she remembered it perfectly: because Lady Duncombe had been with him at the time, and she was afraid of recalling painful associations.

"And when did you leave Banleigh?"

"About a week ago."

"How were my people?"

"I saw Lady Albinia and Miss Duncombe the day before I left. They were both very well."

A shy smile lighted up her face as she mentioned Miss Duncombe. There was evidently some joke about her, for it was reflected on Sir Everard's. "Poor old Cecilia," laughed he.

Miss Duncombe was a lady of limited intellect, and exceedingly young for her age; and everybody was at liberty to laugh at her. They talked on about her for some time, while Humphrey listened with all his might, and then Sir Everard took his leave.

"I'm better now," said Humphrey, as they rode along.

"What! were you not feeling well?" said Sir Everard, alarmed.

"Oh, yes; but I mean about my secret. What makes me feel better is, that I've told it to that lady—Mrs. Colville's sister."

"I don't believe you will ever keep that secret for ten days more. Do you know my birthday is not till Monday week?"

"Oh dear! oh dear! I thought it was much sooner than that. Let's be quick and talk of something else!"

"What shall we talk about? I am expecting two gentlemen down from London to-night, to spend Sunday; and I'm going to meet them at the station, as soon as I have taken you home to your tea. Will that do?"

"Yes, that will do. Are they nice gentlemen?"

"Yes, I think them so: but then tastes differ. Perhaps you won't."

"Old or young?"

"Well! one is a good deal older than me and——"

"White hair, then of course?" put in Humphrey.

"Greyish, perhaps; and the other is about the age of your uncle Charlie."

"Will he tell us such nice stories about kangaroos and boar-hunting?"

"I should think probably not. The other one is more likely to tell you stories, as he has had little boys of his own."

"Miles and I know of a pond where the branch of a tree hangs over, just like the one in Uncle Charlie's story; and we are going to crawl along it some day, and look down at our faces in the water, like the man did."

"Now, Humphrey," said Sir Everard, "I won't have it done. The branch is quite rotten, and may break off any minute."

Humphrey looked very mournful. "Are you quite sure, father?"

"Quite sure; and I forbid you to do it. Do you hear?"

"Very well, father," with a sigh; "we won't crawl along, if you don't like it; but you won't mind our going to look at it? We've been prevented so many times, and we do so want to go there! If we promise not to climb, you won't say we're not to go, will you?"

"Yes—once for all, I say you are not to go near the pond; and I trust to you, Humphrey, to obey me. Promise."

"It's a great pity, father!"

"Never mind. I won't have Miles led into any more mischief."

Humphrey promised rather reluctantly adding to himself: "It's not much use making me promise anything, because I'm sure to forget."

They rode on in silence for some time after this; and when Humphrey next spoke, it was on quite a different subject.

"I didn't know till to-day, father, that you didn't like Aunt Cecilia!"

"What do you mean, Humphrey?" said Sir Everard, horrified.

"You spoke as if you didn't much like her, to Mrs. Colville's sister."

"Why, what did I say?" said Sir Everard, hastily casting back his thoughts to the conversation.

"Well, you seemed to laugh at her a good deal."

"My dear child," said Sir Everard, relieved, "having a little joke about a person does not prove one does not like that person. I am very fond of your Aunt. It would be odd indeed if I did not like my only sister. Why, when I laugh at you and Miles, do you think I do not like you?"

It was a lame sentence, badly put together, and not expressing much. Sir Everard was not at all satisfied with it himself. He had got it up in such a hurry that he was not at all sure whether it was sense or not, and he was anxious to see if it would answer its purpose. Children are sometimes, however, very easily silenced; and Humphrey received the explanation with great respect.

The danger was past, for this time; but Sir Everard, inwardly resolved never to speak before the children again; and the anxieties of the evening before recurring at the same moment to his mind, he determined not to run any more risks.

So, on arriving at home, he sent up a private message to Virginie that he should not require either of the young gentlemen down-stairs that evening, though they might come to his dressing-room as usual.

Then, after transferring the precious parcel from his own to Humphrey's pocket, he wished the boy "good-bye," and went to meet his friends at the station.

CHAPTER VII.

The next day was Sunday, and a hopelessly wet one. Humphrey and Miles made great friends with their father's guests at breakfast—the former giving them the whole account of the aborigines' dinner-party and the birthday present.

As soon as breakfast was over, Sir Everard and one of his friends went into the library to look for a book they had been talking about, and the two little boys were left with the other gentleman.

Presently Virginie looked in. "M. Humphrey! M. Miles!"

Little Miles jumped up, and went to the door, but Humphrey took no notice.

"Je vous attends, M. Humphrey."

"I'm not coming," said Humphrey. "I'm going to stay and amuse this gentleman."

"Je reviendrai bientôt," said Virginie and she went away, with Miles.

"Is your nurse French?" enquired Colonel Sturt.

"Yes—she's French."

"Then why do you speak to her in English?"

"I never speak French on Sunday," answered Humphrey; "I don't think it's right."

"Not right! Why not?"

"Lessons are wrong on Sunday; and French is a sort of lessons—so French must be wrong too."

"Humphie," said little Miles, running in: "Virginie says you must come, or you'll be late for chairs."

"What does he mean?" asked Colonel Sturt.

"He means prayers," answered Humphrey; "he always calls them 'chairs' because he only sees the long rows before we begin, as he's too young to stay. I suppose, as it's so wet, we are not going to church."

"Oh, that's it—is it? Well I'm inclined to think you ought to go then, Humpty-Dumpty, or whatever it is he calls you."

The little boys thought this a capital joke.

"Why, Humpty-Dumpty was the man who sat on a wall!"

"Yes, and had a great fall—which is just what you'll do in a minute," said the Colonel to Humphrey, who had climbed up the back of his chair, and was sitting astride on the top.

"Humpty-Dumpty was an egg," said Humphrey. "I don't break so easily. Come along, Miles." And he jumped down and ran off, followed by his brother, both singing:

"Humpty-Dumpty sat on a wall,

Humpty-Dumpty had a great fall."

The echoes of their merry voices died away as they ran up-stairs, and the concluding words were not distinguishable.

Five minutes after, the gong sounded, and the servants filed into the library.

Humphrey was in his place by his father, Mr. Wemyss seated near, and everything ready. But Colonel Sturt had not appeared. Humphrey looked up anxiously at every sound.

Sir Everard concluded he did not mean to come, so he opened his book, and signed to one of the servants to shut the door. Humphrey's restless eyes followed his friend William's movements as he rose to obey. The next moment he was convulsed with laughter, and could scarcely restrain himself.

No one else seemed to see anything amusing, and Sir Everard began to read with his usual gravity; but Humphrey, though he got better as the service proceeded, did not dare glance towards the servants' end of the room, and had to keep his eyes fixed on his prayer-book, for fear they should be tempted to stray in that direction. What was it that had tickled the boy's fancy?

Only that just as William was closing the door, the missing gentleman had slipped quietly in and unconsciously seated himself in the footman's vacant place at the end of the long line of servants, where he remained during the rest of the service.

The sight of him there, combined with the expression of William's face at finding his place occupied, had at first completely upset Humphrey; but, after a time, the veneration for solemn things, which was so prominent a feature in his character, came to his help and he became engrossed in his responses.

The afternoon proving as wet as the morning, Sir Everard, for want of something better to do, showed his friends over the house. He had a few good pictures, and the ceiling of one of the upper rooms; was curiously painted; otherwise there was, not much to see.

Wandering about a thinly-inhabited house on a wet day is always rather depressing and it would have been a melancholy business, but for the children. But Humphrey and Miles chased each other along the passages, and made the unoccupied rooms ring with their merry voices. They were very anxious to do the honors of their own apartments, when, in due course, the nurseries were reached.

"This is my bed," proclaimed Humphrey and "Here is my bath," announced Miles.

"But what's this?" said Colonel Sturt, taking up an embroidered cigar-case that lay upon the table.

A shriek was the only answer.

Colonel Sturt nearly dropped the cigar-case in his consternation; Sir Everard turned hastily round; and Humphrey, snatching it up, rushed out of the room.

"What is the matter?" asked Sir Everard.

"It was the birthday present!" said little Miles, in an awe-struck whisper.

Sir Everard followed Humphrey to assure him he had not seen anything; which made matters rather worse, as he found him in the act of hiding it in Virginie's band-box, under her best Sunday bonnet. With some difficulty he reassured the boy, and brought him back.

"It was a near thing, though," observed Humphrey, with a sigh of relief.

Colonel Sturt was now almost afraid to remark on anything else; but a shilling concealed in a tooth-glass attracted his attention.

"Oh, that's my money," explained Humphrey, "that I am saving to buy old Dyson an ear-trumpet with. It was the only safe place I could find to keep it in."

"How much will it cost?" asked the Colonel.

"Seventeen shillings, I believe."

"And how much have you got?"

"Well, only that yet," answered the boy, pointing to the solitary shilling; "but then you know, I only began yesterday."

Colonel Sturt asked a good many questions about old Dyson, and then took half-a-sovereign from his pocket, and dropped it into the tooth-glass. "That's my contribution," said he.

Humphrey was too much excited by this unexpected munificence to make civil speeches; but his unfeigned surprise and delight were worth all the thanks in the world. He ran after his father to exhibit his treasure, and returned breathless.

"Only think!" he said to Colonel Sturt, "that other gentlemen has given me six shillings; so now I can buy the trumpet directly, and I thought it would be weeks and weeks before I got it!"

The children were now summoned to their tea, and told to wish the gentlemen "good-night," as they were not to come down to dinner.

But Humphrey first extorted a promise from Colonel Sturt, that he would go to the ear-trumpet shop the next day, the very minute he arrived in London, and have it sent off directly.

Sir Everard had nearly finished dressing that evening, when the door was thrown open, and both boys rushed into the room.

"There! take it father," said Humphrey holding out the cigar-case—"that's for you. That's your birthday present—the grand secret! It's no use our trying to keep it any longer, because we can't!"

"Are you surprised, Fardie?" asked little Miles, clapping his hands, and Humphrey eagerly repeated the question.

Sir Everard could, with all truth, assure the children that he had never been so surprised in his life; for, as he did not smoke, certainly the very last present he would have expected was a cigar-case!

But his pleasure and gratitude were so well feigned, that the children went to bed highly delighted with the success of their birthday present.

CHAPTER VIII.

"Good-bye, Humpty-Dumpty! The trumpet shall be at the station at five o'clock this afternoon without fail."

So spoke Colonel Sturt, as Sir Everard drove his two friends from the door the next morning.

Humphrey waved his hat in answer, and flew off to make arrangements with Virginie for going to the station to meet it. He had his father's leave for himself and Miles to go there with the coachman, and to be dropped afterwards at old Dyson's, where Virginie was to meet them, and bring them home.

Nothing could be more perfect! At about half-past four, the dog-cart drove up to the door, and off they went, followed by many parting injunctions from Virginie as to getting in and out carefully, and sitting very still.

The trumpet was waiting at the station, and was safely delivered into their eager hands.

On the way to old Dyson's, Humphrey opened the parcel, and displayed the ear-trumpet to Miles.

Never had they seen so curious an article! It was composed of three tubes, each fitting into the next, and it lengthened or shortened at will.

Humphrey got very impatient to arrive, and tried to persuade the coachman to whip up the horse into a gallop; but steady old Peter didn't see it at all.

Humphrey then amused himself by lengthening out the tubes, and trumpeting loudly through them; causing the horse to start so violently, that little Miles was almost pitched out. Then, in shutting it up again, he dropped it into the road, and they had to wait while he got out and picked it up.

All this causing a delay, Peter was told on arriving at the cottage, that Virginie had already been there, but that, finding she was too soon, she had walked on to the village, and was to call again in a few minutes.

This information he gathered from a woman who was standing at the gate, and who assisted the children to alight.

Then, having deposited them safely, Peter drove off; and Humphrey, brandishing his trumpet, rushed down the little garden, and beat a thundering tattoo on old Dyson's door. But, loud as it was, it did not make any impression on the deaf old man, who was sitting in his arm-chair, indulging in an afternoon nap.

One minute Humphrey waited, and then his patience gave way. He raised the latch, and the two children entered the cottage.

"He's asleep," whispered Miles.

"You must go and give him a little shake," said Humphrey.

Miles advanced timidly. He didn't much like the job, but disobedience to Humphrey was a thing he never dreamt of.

Humphrey hid the trumpet behind him, and waited eagerly.

Miles's gentle shake produced no effect at all; Dyson only smiled pleasantly in his sleep.

"Shake his hand," said Humphrey.

Miles looked doubtfully at the horny hand lying on the arm of the chair, and flushed a little as he put his tiny fingers upon it. But the old man did not move.

"Harder!" cried Humphrey.

Miles exerted himself to the utmost, and succeeded better, for the old man turned over to one side of his chair, and lifted his head a little.

Miles retreated a few steps. But it was a false alarm, for old Dyson's head fell forward again.

"You must jump on his knee, Miles."

The pretty little face lengthened considerably.

"Oh, Humphie! must I really?"

"Why not?"

"Don't much like it, Humphie."

"What! afraid of poor old Dyson! Never mind, I'll do it."

And, putting the trumpet on the floor, Humphrey sprang upon the old man, and shook him so vigorously that he woke in a fright; but when he saw his little visitors, he sat down again with a smile, saying, "Aye, aye, Mamselle said I was to expect you; and how are ye to-day, my pretty dears?"

"Quite well, thank you," said Miles, drawing nearer.

Dyson put his hand behind his ear: "I don't hear what you say," he said, rather sadly; "I'm an old man, and I'm getting deafer every day."

Humphrey chuckled with delight, and Miles looked up smiling.

"He'll hear soon, won't he, Humphie?"

"Dyson!" shouted Humphrey, backing a few steps and beckoning, "come here."

The unsuspecting old man rose and advanced. The boy was watching his opportunity, and directly he was near enough Humphrey snatched up the trumpet, and putting it up, shouted such a "How are you?" into the old man's ear, that the shock caused Dyson to bound into the air, and then fall backwards with such force, that if he had not providentially fallen into his chair, he might never have survived to tell the tale. And there he remained, sputtering and panting, shaking his head about, as if he felt he would never get rid of the vibration.

The two little boys stood aghast. As good luck would have it, the woman who had met them at the gate was of an inquisitive disposition; and wondering what was going on in the cottage, she had for some time been peeping in at the window.

She understood at once the position of affairs, and came hastily in.

Raising the old man from his chair, she explained to him what had happened. It was some minutes before he understood, for he was bewildered and alarmed: but he took it in at last, and the children had the satisfaction of receiving his thanks, and assurances that he was by no means ungrateful for their present.

Then the woman spoke gently to him through the trumpet, and his look of pleasure at hearing so clearly, and his "Well! to be sure!" was a great delight to the two little boys.

When Dyson had got accustomed to the sound, he declared himself willing for Humphrey to try again, but the woman suggested that Miles's voice was the softest, to which Humphrey agreed.

Miles took up the trumpet, and his gentle "I'm so sorry Humphie made you jump," was whispered so quietly, that Dyson only just caught the sound.

Then the old man held it out to Humphrey, who, not expecting it, had not got anything to say. So no sooner had he put his lips to it than he went off into such fits of laughter, that Dyson hastily removed the trumpet, and began to rub his ear, "Aye, but it does tickle so." This made Humphrey laugh more, and the woman advised his abandoning the attempt for that day.

By this time, however, Dyson had got so pleased with his new accomplishment, that he declared it his intention to go and pay some visits in the village, saying it was several years since he had had a good chat with his neighbors.

But they all went, the old man hurrying on at a great rate, so eager was he to show off his newly-recovered powers.

The first person they met was Virginie, and Dyson said he must have a word with "Mamselle."

Humphrey was in an excited state, ready for anything; so while Virginie was talking, he called Miles, and told him he thought it would be a capital evening for the pond where the water-lilies grew. There was a stile at the side of the road, which he knew to be a short cut to the pond, and he had no doubt they would be able to find their way.

No recollection of his promise to his father troubled his conscience; and as they were not going to climb the tree, even Virginie could not object!

So he helped his little brother over the stile, and then they both ran with all their might.

Meanwhile Virginie, talking affably through the trumpet, in the high road, did not notice that they had disappeared.

CHAPTER IX.

There was an unusual stir in the quiet household of Wareham Abbey that evening; for at nearly eight o'clock the two little boys had not returned home.

Virginie had not been very much concerned at their absence during the first few hours, as they very often ran on before her, and then betook themselves to some of their favorite haunts.

But when tea-time came and passed, she got uneasy, and went to look for them. Her uneasiness changed to alarm when she had visited in vain the dairy, laundry, swing, gardens, and dog-kennel. Then, when it came on to rain, her anxiety increased; and when from drizzling it changed to a steady down-pour her "nerves" gave way completely, and she returned home to consult with the other servants as to what steps had best be taken.

She went into the housekeeper's room, wringing her hands, and prognosticating all sorts of evils to Miles. "Never, never, would he recover from the effects of such a wetting!"

The gardener was dispatched one way and the coachman another, bearing umbrellas and galoshes.

The two little culprits were soon discovered sitting in a damp ditch, sheltering themselves under a hedge.

Humphrey took great credit to himself for having hit upon this plan.

"The fact was," he said, "the pond and the water-lilies had been so engrossing, that he had forgotten all about the time till he saw the sun beginning to sink; then starting off in a great hurry, they had taken the wrong turning out of the field, and lost their way in the wood."

They were wandering on in the wrong direction, when they met a boy, who had pointed out their mistake, and brought them back to the high road. Here Humphrey had suddenly recollected that rain was apt to give his little brother cold, and with great pride in his own forethought had established him, dripping wet as he already was, under the hedge where they had been sitting for about half an hour before the coachman found them.

It was no use Virginie venting her wrath upon Humphrey. All that could be done now, was to get Miles into bed as quickly as could be, and ward off ill effects if possible.

But the mischief was done. Miles tossed about all night, and woke next morning with an oppression on his chest, which was always with him the forerunner of an attack on the lungs.

The doctor came to see him, and ordered him to be kept in bed.

Humphrey spent the morning with his little brother, but was dismissed at last, as talking only made Miles cough.

In the afternoon Miles got worse, and Virginie sent off again for the doctor.

Humphrey kept out of her way, feeling that he was in disgrace, and went out into the garden. He felt dull and solitary without his little brother, but, childlike, he had not begun to be anxious, for Miles had often been ill before, and had always got well again. Still there was no fun in anything without him, no exploit any satisfaction without his applause. Humphrey betook himself at last to the little gardens, where he had a friend in the person of Dolly, the laundry-maid. The gardens were close to the laundry, and often, when she was ironing at the window, Dolly had watched the children at their play, and overheard their long conversations. She was perhaps the only person who had seen Humphrey in his serious moods. Unknown to him, she had witnessed one of his rare bursts of feeling at the time of his mother's death, and after that, had ever been one of his staunchest supporters. She could never forget how the little fellow had sobbed over the mustard and cress he had sown for his mother and which had come up too late!

The weather had been dry for some time previously, and it had shown no sign of coming up. Every day he had visited it, that he might cut it for her to eat with her afternoon tea; but every visit had been in vain. Then, on that sad day, when the funeral train had borne away all that remained of her, he had come to his garden in his restless longing to escape from his sorrow, and the first thing that had met his eye was the green A. D. mocking him with its freshness and luxuriance.

"It's no use now," Dolly had heard him sob; "I wish it had never come up!"

This was the very day he had been chasing the young lambs in the meadow, while his father watched him from the window and this was how it had ended.

Humphrey found a good deal to do in his garden, and worked away busily for some time; he then assisted Dolly to turn the mangle, and bottled some soap-suds for future bubble blowing. He also informed her of the honor in store for her at the Harvest Home, and anxiously asked her what gown she meant to wear on the occasion. She must be very smart, he said, awfully smart! Dolly confided her intention of investing in a new print dress, and consulted him as to the color.

Casting his thoughts back to the smartest thing he had lately seen, they reverted to the cigar-case, and he suggested crimson and gold.

Dolly looked rather scared, and expressed her doubts as to the probability of those colors being found in any print sold in the village.

"Yellow would do, you know," said Humphrey, "and it would be like the corn."

So Dolly promised to try and procure a yellow print, with a red stripe or spot; and, if that were impossible, a plain yellow one could no doubt be found.

Time slipped by very quickly, but still Humphrey rather wondered at last that no one should call him in to his tea; and after a while he put his tools away, and wished Dolly good-bye.

He gathered a few young radishes for a treat for Miles, and then ran home.

He was surprised to find the nursery door locked, and began to kick it.

"Miles!" he called out, "I've brought you some radishes. Ouvrez, Virginie, c'est moi!"

The door was opened with an angry jerk, and Virginie flounced into the passage.

Humphrey saw at a glance that she was in one of what he and Miles called "her states," but whether it was of anger or alarm, he could not at first make out. It was always a bad sign when her face was enveloped in flannel, as was now the case. Virginie always tied up her face on the smallest provocation, though to what end the children had never discovered. But anyhow, she was sure to be out of temper when she did so, and Humphrey waited rather anxiously to hear what she had to say.

She burst into a voluble flow of talk, which, owing to her excitement, the boy found it difficult to follow. He managed however, to gather that Miles was very, very ill, that the doctor was very much alarmed about him; that it was all his (Humphrey's) fault; that he had woke Miles by kicking at the door just as she had hoped he was going to get some sleep; that he was to go away and keep away, and that everybody, including the doctor, was very angry with him.

Then she retreated into the room, and shut the door, leaving him standing in the passage, with his bunch of radishes in his hand.

All the light faded out of Humphrey's face, as he tried to think over what he had just heard.

"Miles so ill that the doctor was frightened."

That was the most prominent idea at first, and in his dread and apprehension, Humphrey hardly dared move.

Sometimes he put his eye to the keyhole, to see if he could discover what was going on in the room, and then, lying down on the door-mat, he listened with all his might.

The silence within, only broken by whispering voices, frightened him, and his heart began to beat loudly.

If only the child could have looked into the room and seen his little brother lying in bed half asleep, and Virginie putting a linseed poultice on his chest, or whispering to Jane to bring her his cooling-draught, his fears would have vanished.

But it is ever so with sudden illness. Those who are kept in the dark always have the worst of it; for mystery and suspense are, like anticipation, always worse than reality. Imagination runs riot, and brings great suffering to the outsiders. How much are children to be pitied on these occasions! Everyone's thoughts are necessarily with the invalid, and no one has time to bestow a word on the poor little trembling things standing outside the sick-room. They feel they are useless, and considered in the way; and do not dare make inquiries of the maids who run in and out of the room—with important faces, who probably could not stop to answer even if they did; and so are left to magnify every sound into some terrible significance, which probably has no foundation but in their own disordered fancies.

There is terror in whispering voices, agony in the sharp ringing of a bell, mystery even in the calling for spoons and glasses, and their jingling as they are handed in.

All this, and more, was experienced by little Humphrey Duncombe. I say more, because his fears were not those of ordinary children. The dread I have been describing is for the most part a nameless dread; the children know not why they fear, nor what; it is all vague and undefined, because they have no experience of sorrow.

But remember that this child was no stranger to sickness and death; that into his little life they had already entered; that the grim visitor had swept through the walls of his home, and left it very empty. What had happened once, might happen again. So he gave it all up at once, "Miles was dying! perhaps already dead!"

A child of Humphrey's disposition suffers intensely when face to face with sorrow. Granted that the power of being easily distracted is a mitigation, it does not alter the feeling for the time. Life, past and future, is grafted into the misery of the present, and existence itself is a blank.

He was so tender-hearted, too, poor little fellow! so remorseful for his errors, so sensitive to an unkind word. Yet, as we have seen, with all this, he was so heedless, thoughtless, and volatile, that no one could give him credit for any depth of feeling; and even his father (though he would not have had it otherwise, though he rejoiced that he should have the capability of turning into enjoyment, both for himself and Miles every event of their lonely child-life) had marvelled at him, and had more than once said to himself, "The boy has no heart!"

No heart! why, as we see him there in the passage, his poor little heart is filled to bursting.

Stung by Virginie's harsh words, wrung with fear for his little brother, alarmed as much for his father's grief as his father's anger, and remorseful at the thought of his own broken promise, Humphrey sank down on the ground, and cried as if his heart would break.

In addition to the grief, it was such a dreadful feeling, that, in a trouble like this, no one cared to help him; that he was looked upon as the cause of it all; that his hand seemed against every man, and every man's hand against him.

His sorrow must be greater than theirs, he reflected. Was not Miles more to him than to Virginie? And yet they left him—sobbing and crying—unheeded.

Lying there, crouched up by the door such an awful sense of loneliness came down upon the boy's soul. In the hour of his trouble he needed pity so much, and no one gave it to him.

Then there arose in his heart such a terrible longing for his mother; such a yearning, that would not be quieted, for all that he had had, and all that he had lost; such an overwhelming sense of the void in his life, that he could not bear it, and he started to his feet with a sob which was almost a cry.

This feeling must go, he could not bear it, and he fought with it with desperation; for it was an old enemy, one with whom he had often wrestled in desperate conflict before, and upon whose attacks he always looked back with horror. Deep down in his heart it had its being, but it was only every now and then that it rose up to trouble him.

Of late it had assailed him much less, its attacks had been weaker, and occurring at much longer intervals. Why has it risen with such relentless force now? How is he to resist it? How is he to fight with it? This blank, empty feeling, how is he to drive it away?

He tried to think of his garden, of his games, and of all the things which constituted the joy of his young existence.

Children of a larger growth, but children in understanding still, do not many of us wrestle with this undefined feeling in the same way? This mysterious thing, which we, with our maturer experience, call sorrow, is not our first thought when it assails us, "How shall we drive it away?" Call it grief, despair, disappointment, anxiety, care—call it what you will, do we not try to drown it in change of thought of some kind? Does it not drive the rich to society, traveling, or excitement, and the poor to the public-house?

Here were the passages where he had romped with Miles; here were the stairs down which he had jumped that very morning, and the balustrades down which he had slid; why did they look so different?