lips, that pure young heart, a year may work sad change in their words
and thoughts!" She sighed again, and her eyes glistened as she raised
them upwards, and breathed a silent prayer.

She loved the boy dearly, and had taught him from his earliest years.
In most things she found him an apt pupil. Truthful, ingenuous, quick,
he would acquire almost without effort any subject that interested him,
and a word was often enough to bring the impetuous blood to his cheeks,
in a flush, of pride or indignation. He required the gentlest teaching,
and had received it, while his mind seemed cast in such a mould of
stainless honor that he avoided most of the faults to which children are
prone. But he was far from blameless. He was proud to a fault; he well
knew that few of his fellows had gifts like his, either of mind or
person, and his fair face often showed a clear impression of his own
superiority. His passion, too, was imperious, and though it always met
with prompt correction, his cousin had latterly found it difficult to
subdue. She felt, in a word, that he was outgrowing her rule. Beyond a
certain age no boy of spirit can be safely guided by a woman's
hand alone.

Eric Williams was now twelve years old. His father was a civilian in
India, and was returning on furlough to England after a long absence.
Eric had been born in India, but had been sent to England by his parents
at an early age, in charge of a lady friend of his mother. The parting,
which had been agony to his father and mother, he was too young to feel;
indeed the moment itself passed by without his being conscious of it.
They took him on board the ship, and, after a time, gave him a hammer
and some nails to play with. These had always been to him a supreme
delight, and while he hammered away, Mr. and Mrs. Williams, denying
themselves, for the child's sake, even one more tearful embrace, went