name quite well) was very happy now, no doubt comforted by the happier look and more cheerful tone of voice of the boy, who Joey must have known loved his little master very fondly, and was missing him very sorely, the dog reluctantly, but obediently, followed Alan and James back home.

'You were to be comforted, you know, too, Joey,' Alan said as they walked along. 'Am I doing it

properly, do you think?'

Poor Joey was too sad to wag his tail in answer.

It may seem strange that a sick child, confined entirely to his own home, could be missed not only at home, but abroad; yet so it was, for everybody at St. Aubyn's seemed somehow or another to be missing 'The Lad' to-day. The good influence that this patient young child had exercised had spread far and wide on and around his father's property; but sorrowful as the empty 'Snuggery' made his two fond parents' hearts, they would not, on any account, have called their darling back into it again.

Many loving tears were shed over the long paper that Cyril had asked Alan to write for him, and each recipient of Laddie's gifts deeply prized and valued them.

The evening of the funeral Alan was again absent from the others, and his mother found him sitting alone in the Snuggery.'

'I forgot,' he said as she looked in, and came up here to be with Cyril; but when I remembered, I thought I'd like to stay a little bit and think about him. Oh, Mother! it isn't such a nice place here now, is it?' he then asked sadly.

'You will always miss Cyril very much,' was the reply; 'but you have a great deal to comfort you, my darling. I am so glad that you, my boy, were so much of a comfort to your invalid cousin. Think, for instance, Alan,' his mother went on, 'how great your grief would now have been, had you been selfish when with Cyril, or had you not tried to give him pleasure while he was here.'

'I am glad, Mother,' Alan said quickly, that you advised me to go into his "position" that day, and that I did promise not to be a soldier.'

A great deal more Mrs. Godfrey said to her son by way of comfort, a great deal besides the secret he told to her; and the fact that his mother's words were spoken to Alan in the 'Snuggery' made them yet more full of comfort than even otherwise they might have been.

A fortnight later, the Godfreys left St. Aubyn's, Mr. St. Aubyn going with them as far as the station to see them off. Alan was very silent during this drive to the station. His uncle asked him of what he was thinking.

'I was thinking about Cyril,' he replied; 'I believe I shall always think of Cyril.'

'And what are you thinking about yourself, Uncle?'

Much the same as you, my boy,' was the answer; 'and, thank God, we can all say it is a very cheery thought!"

'We can, indeed,' said both Captain and Mrs. Godfrey, for the Captain was able to come and fetch them home. And meanwhile these words were echoing in Nell's memory: 'What we have to do is to endeavour to spend

our means so as to get the greatest real happiness for ourselves, our relatives, friends, and all other people whom we ought to consider.' Surely this was well done at St. Aubyn's! This place seemed to her to be a very exemplification of all that. And no one had illustrated it better than Cyril, its little cripple heir, who might be said not only to have 'spent' his means, but himself, dear little boy, his thoughts, his words, his deeds, 'so as to get the greatest real happiness for others.'