And the fond mother hoped he always would. But these words often came
back to Eric's mind in later and less happy days--days when that gentle
hand could no longer rest lovingly on his head--when those mild blue
eyes were dim with tears, and the fair boy, changed in heart and life,
often flung himself down with an unreproaching conscience to
prayerless sleep.

It had been settled that in another week Eric was to go to school in
the Isle of Roslyn. Mr. Williams had hired a small house in the town of
Ellan, and intended to stay there for his year of furlough, at the end
of which period Vernon was to be left at Fairholm, and Eric in the house
of the head-master of the school. Eric enjoyed the prospect of all
things, and he hardly fancied that Paradise itself could be happier than
a life at the seaside with his father and mother and Vernon, combined
with the commencement of schoolboy dignity. When the time for the voyage
came, his first glimpse of the sea, and the sensation of sailing over it
with only a few planks between him and the deep waters, struck him
silent with admiring wonder. It was a cloudless day; the line of blue
sky melted into the line of blue wave, and the air was filled with
sunlight. At evening they landed, and the coach took them to Ellan. On
the way Eric saw for the first time the strength of the hills, so that
when they reached the town and took possession of their cottage, he was
dumb with the inrush of new and marvellous impressions.

Next morning he was awake early, and jumping out of bed, so as not to
disturb the sleeping Vernon, he drew up the window-blind, and gently
opened the window. A very beautiful scene burst on him, one destined to
be long mingled with all his most vivid reminiscences. Not twenty yards
below the garden, in front of the house, lay Ellan Bay, at that moment
rippling with golden laughter in the fresh breeze of sunrise. On either