'I didn't see them, though, of course, because I was only a baby.'

'I expect you saw them,' said Nell, 'but you can't remember.'

Can you remember anything of them?' Alan asked quickly.

'Yes, of course I can, as it was only four years ago that we went there, just before we went to India, and I was rather a big girl then, as I'm double your age, you

know.'

'Are you?' asked Alan seriously. Then he began to say his multiplication table: twice 1 are 2, twice 2 are 4, twice 3 are 6, twice 4 are 8, twice 5 are 10. Oh yes, how funny! Then when I am fifty, you will be a hundred, because Miss Jeffreson told me to-day that twice fifty made a hundred.'

Nell considered: she was not very clever at figures, but still she could soon put Alan right about this. 'No,' she said; 'I shan't always be double your age: it's because I am five years older than you, and twice 5 are ten, that I'm it now.'

Alan could not quite understand; but if Nell said it, it was sure to be right, so he dropped that subject.

'I ought to be more unhappy than you, Nell, you know, about the baby dying; do you know that?' Alan soon began again.

'Why, Alan?'

'Because, as he had my name, I must have been his godfather, of course.'

Nell burst out laughing.

'You are a funny boy,' she said.

'Well, I have my name because my godfather, Uncle Alan, had it too.'

6

The up-stairs bell now rang.

There, Alan, that's for us to go and say "good night." Come along,' Nell said, and as she spoke the pair trotted down-stairs together to give their father and mother their evening kiss.

Is the baby's father and mother very unhappy now, do you think?' Alan asked as he sat upon his father's knee.

'You ought to say "are they? "' corrected Nell.

'Are they, Father?'

'Very sad to-night, I am afraid.'

'But Alan likes it himself; and is Cyril, do you think, a bit like me,' the child went on questioning, as he's my age? who is quite the oldest?'

'Cyril is five days older than you are.'

'And is he like me at all?' Alan now appealed to his mother.

From what I hear, I should think very little indeed,' she replied. He has short, fair hair, and you have '

'A long dark mane,' the child answered, looking at his father for approval, for this was a favourite saying of his. 'But manes don't curl, do they, Mother?' he added. 'And what colour eyes has he?'

'Blue; and yours are grey, with much darker eyelashes than Cyril's have.'

'And aren't our

faces?'

-alike?—you know, the colour of our

'Yes; your complexions are very much the same: they are both fair,' was the answer.

Alan did so long to be like his cousin Cyril in some ways; but had he been really like him, what sadness must have come to this wild child

'I'm glad they are alike, Mother. When do you think we shall go there; will it be soon now?'

Then came prayers, 'good night,' and to bed; but long into the night Alan dreamt happy dreams of his St. Aubyn cousins, whom he so longed to see.

'Alan's quite forgotten to ask you what time you have to be on parade to-morrow, Father,' Nell whispered as she said her 'good night.' 'I believe it's almost the first night he's forgotten to ask you since we came to Portsmouth. He said yesterday that he thought the time for parade in Allahabad much more sensible than the time here. He liked early hours, like 6 or 7 o'clock, not 10, as the hour for parade is so often now.'

'Alan is a funny little man,' was the Captain's reply, 'but a regular soldier's boy.'

noise?' Mrs. Godfrey asked a week later, opening the schoolroom door as she spoke, and looking into that room to see what the loud crying which she there heard could be all about, although she could very nearly guess; for she recognised Alan's voice, and Alan had sometimes a very naughty temper.

Miss Jeffreson was now standing by him, and he, white with passion, was screaming and kicking-not kicking his instructress-oh, no, Alan was too much of a little gentleman to do anything as dreadful as that even in a rage, but kicking the harmless, unoffending schoolroom wall

B

as he stood in a corner of the room, where Miss Jeffreson

had placed him.

'What is all this about, Alan ?' his mother asked in a very stern voice for her.

The little boy still cried with passion.

'I am sorry to say,' replied Miss Jeffreson, 'that Alan is a very naughty boy this afternoon. He wrote his copy very badly, although he can write it well now, if he choose; and when I told him to write it over again, he cried like this, and said that he would not do it.'

'It's play-time now, Mother,' he sobbed, 'and I've "a something" to settle with Nell. I don't see why I should do lessons in play-time,' and as he spoke Alan cried louder than before.

'Go up-stairs at once to your little bedroom, Alan,' said his mother gently, 'and stay there until you are a good boy again. When you have conquered your naughty temper you can come and tell me that you have done so, but do not leave your room till then.' Mrs. Godfrey knew that it was of no use to argue with her child in his present mood.

Alan obeyed, and going into his little room he walked straight up to the window to look out of it. There he could see Nell in the garden, all by herself, waiting, he knew, for him, for they had made such beautiful plans together for 'in the garden' after lessons to-day. But Alan could not help knowing whose fault it was that only Nell was there to keep their appointment. Again the child sobbed; and as he turned round to walk away from the window, he caught sight of his face in the little lookingglass hanging in his room—of that face which the people