anything or any one in the house, and kinder, far, far kinder.

Often when Mrs. Slater would wonder of what her son was thinking as he
sat twisting string round and round in front of the fire, he would be
aware of his Friend in the shadow of the light, watching gravely, in the
cheerful room, having beneath his hands all the powers, good and evil,
of the house. Just as Henry pictured quite clearly to himself other
occupants of the house--some one with taloned claws behind the piano,
another with black-hooded eyes and a peaked cap in the shadows of an
upstairs passage, another brown, shrivelled and naked, who dwelt in a
cupboard in one of the empty bedrooms so, too, he could see his Friend,
vast and shadowy, with a flowing beard and eyes that were kind and
shining.

Often he had felt the pressure of his hand, had heard his reassuring
whisper in his ears, had known the touch of his lips upon his forehead.
No harm could come to him whilst his Friend was in the house--and his
Friend was always there.

He went always with his mother into the streets when she did her
shopping or simply took the air. It was natural that on these occasions,
he should be more frightened than during his hours in the house. In the
first place his Friend did not accompany him on these out-of-door
excursions, and his mother was not nearly so strong a protector as his
Friend.

Then he was disturbed by the people who pressed and pushed about
him--he had a sense that they were all like birds with flapping wings
and strange cries, rushing down upon him--the colours and confusion of
the shops bewildered him. There was too much here for him properly to