sitting up with the picture open before her. She was quite calm and quiet, though very pale. "Look here, Willie," she said softly. He went over and looked at it. right; I'm so glad you've got it, Edy." "So am I," she answered. "It's exactly "I'm so sorry for you," he whispered. "I don't mind telling you, I've had an awful hard cry over Uncle Edmund's going away." Edith began to cry again at this, and Willie looked and felt very uncomfortable. "I say, Edith, don't cry, please don't; I hate to see you cry. I feel choking too. I know Uncle Edmund would not like it. And look here, Edy, I'm going to be brother now, your you're to be my sister. do you see, and And mamma says you are to come and spend the holidays. Won't we have fun? I'll teach you to fish; and we'll dig a pond; and you shall learn to skate. I wish you were going to live with us; but that wouldn't be much good, as papa and mamma are going abroad, and I shall be at school; but in the holidays won't we just have a jolly time of it." Edith's face brightened considerably, and she timidly looked up, and gave Willie a kiss. "I like to be your sister," she said in a low voice. "O Willie! I'm glad there's you and Aunt Geraldine to love me still." "I should think we do just love you. And those Stanleighs are very nice, and all that, I believe; and you will get on with them, I dare say." 66 Papa said he liked some of them very much when he went there to settle it all, and I should like what he liked." "It will be better than going to school, I fancy," said Willie. "Not than a boy's school, Willie. Oh! I wish I was a boy and could go with you." "I wish you could; and then you'd learn cricket and football and all manner of things." "And I'd learn everything very quickly, and go out and be a missionary." "O Edith! how slow. I want to be a sailor." "I don't like the sea, nor ships, nor sailors, nor anything of the kind," said Edith, vehemently. "You will when they bring Uncle Edmund back again," said Willie, smiling. "I say, Edith, what a bonfire we'll light when he comes back. I wonder if he'll bring any monkeys, or black niggers, or any other curiosities with him." Aunt Geraldine coming into the room was delighted to hear the sound of Edith's merry laugh. "Willie was the best comforter she could have had," thought the proud mother; "as if anybody could look at that beautiful face of his and be sad. What a smile he has, and what a sunny look in his blue eyes. You're a boy to be proud of, my Willie!" Certainly Willie had done wonders for his forlorn little cousin, and it was not until she went to bed that night that a full sense of her loneliness returned. Then she knelt down and prayed that God would take care of her father out on the wide blue sea, and that she might be made all that he would have her to be. The life-work was beginning. PART II. Life Lessons. "What shall I do with all the days and hours "I will this dreary blank of absence make F. BUTLER. |