'Please, Cyril,' Alan then said, 'don't say any more of these things, as I don't like them.'

The little boy smiled so brightly in answer, as he replied, 'But you like to make me happy, don't you? And you have, now you've written that so beautifully. I didn't know I'd half so many lovely things. Did you? How kind of people to have given them to me!' and Cyril never felt half so much pleasure in the possession of his treasures as he did now when he was meting them out to others.

'It is a good thing you write so beautifully,' Cyril began again, surveying the wonderful document. Then he paused for a few minutes, and looked very serious.

When he next spoke, he said, 'Perhaps I oughtn't to have asked you not to be a soldier, as you won't have to write letters for me now. Would you like to be it

again?'

'No,' said Alan promptly; if you don't want me to write your letters for you, I'll be an army doctor, and cure the sick and wounded soldiers, and be doctor to their wives and children when they're ill. Wouldn't that be nice?'

'You couldn't be anything better,' Cyril answered, very quickly for him. I like that the best of everything you could be,' and in the feeble little voice rang an accent of great satisfaction.

Alan gave a sigh of relief, as though he were very glad to have made Cyril happy by this decision, and now he said he never meant to change again.

The next moment there was a knock at the door, and

K

Jocelyn, who was in her room, opened it to admit another dear friend of Cyril's, Mr. Maurice from the Rectory. He was always a very frequent visitor to St. Aubyn's Hall and her 'Snuggery,' but his visits to the little invalid heir of St. Aubyn's were being paid more frequently just now. However, he would not stay to-day, as he said Cyril seemed to be tired; but he would call again to-morrow, which he did.

And the day after to-morrow the Captain's leave of absence expiring, he had to return home, leaving his wife and children to follow later.

'Bother the drill season!' Alan said to Cyril, when he explained why his father must go home. 'But,' he continued, 'he was jolly lucky to get even ten days now. Do you know my father is such a favourite in the regiment?, Alan then said. 'Before we left Allahabad, the band played, "For he's a jolly good fellow," just for him; and he was sent home in command of the troops,-about a hundred, I should think, and that doesn't happen to every captain, I can tell you.'

Mrs. St. Aubyn caressingly, as ten days later she came with eyes very red from crying out of the 'Snuggery,' and tried in vain to comfort, by patting and coaxing, a disconsolate dog. 'Poor Joey, I wish we could tell you, so that you could understand us,' she went on, 'as we tell ourselves, that he is much better off; for he is, Joey, and he would be pained if he could see you fret like this.'

Poor Cyril's pet dog never looked up at her, still gazing longingly at the 'Snuggery' door as though he knew all about it.

'Laddie' went Home early this morning. It was the

time by 'God's clock.' The angels had fetched him at last, and the dear child's death had been as calm, and peaceful, and happy as had been his beautiful life. Nobody seemed to have been forgotten by him, nobody unloved to the very end, as he was tenderly loved by all.

'Come, Joey,' Mrs. St. Aubyn continued as she moved a little aside; 'come with me, Joey, and let us comfort one another,' but Joey took no heed.

She then went to Alan's little bedroom, thinking that she heard sobs proceeding thence and, true enough, there she found her little nephew sobbing as we know Alan could sob when he was in great distress.

'Poor children,' Nurse Davies had said to Margery, Kathleen, Donald, and Hyacinth, 'you've lost a rare good brother, that you have;' but nobody had said 'Poor Alan' to him. Even his own mother, Alan thought, had been busy comforting everybody but himself; and yet he felt so dreadfully sad, and alone, and so sorely in need of sympathy and comfort, now that Cyril had gone away.

'I suppose they think he wasn't my brother, and so I don't care so much,' Alan said to himself. 'Well, of course they didn't know our secret, because we didn't tell anybody but our two selves. O Cyril, Cyril, Cyril, why did you go away from me?' the child then cried aloud. 'I want you, oh! I do want you so much!' 'O Laddie, Laddie,' he went on, and just then Mrs. St. Aubyn opened the door.

'Hush, darling boy,' she said, almost choked with tears herself; our Cyril would not like us to grieve like this for him, would he, do you think?'

'Oh no,' Alan answered; but I miss him so much.' Did not she, too, poor woman?

'We all must do that, Alan. God alone knows how I and his father will miss our boy. But, you know, he often had pain, and he used to feel very tired and always had to lie down; so, though he was so contented and cheerful, life could not have been as full of enjoyment for him as it is for us; and where he has gone he will never feel tired, never have pain again. Can't you bear to part with him, Alan, when you know that he is so well and happy, and has gone to a beautiful Home which he loves?'

The little boy looked up into his aunt's face very gravely, very self-reproachfully, for a few minutes, and then slowly repeated these lines to her :

'When friends asleep in Jesus fall,

Why should we shake at death's alarms?

'Tis but the gentle Saviour's voice

Calling them to His arms.'

'Who taught you those words, Alan?' she then asked, looking very much surprised that a little boy should either know or think of them just then.

'Cyril taught me them,' Alan answered quickly, 'for me to say to you and Uncle Cyril when he'd gone away,' he said. 'Do you think they're pretty?'

Mrs. St. Aubyn could not answer.

'Cyril said they were to comfort you,' Alan went on, ' and they've made you cry.'

'They have comforted me very much, Alan,' she answered, 'more than I can tell you. God bless my little cripple boy, Alan. Yes, I could never call him that