ambitious hopes never to be realized, what would you do, Jamie?"
suddenly asked the young man, prompted by the desire that every
human heart has felt for sympathy and counsel, even from the little
creature before him ignorant and inexperienced as he was.

But the child, wiser in his innocence than many an older counsellor,
pointed upward, saying with a look of perfect trust,--

"I should look up to the cross upon the tower and think of what Bess
told me about God, who feeds the birds and clothes the flowers, and
I should wait patiently, feeling sure he would remember me."

The young man leaned his head upon his folded arms and nothing
stirred in the room, but the wind that stole in through the roses to
fan the placid face upon the pillow.

"Are you weary waiting for me, Jamie dear? I could not come before;"
and as her eager voice broke the silence, Sister Bess came hastening
in.

The stranger, looking up, saw a young girl regarding him from
Jamie's close embrace, with a face whose only beauty was the light
her brother spoke of, that beamed warm and bright from her mild
countenance and made the poor room fairer for its presence.

"This is Bess, my Bess, sir," cried the boy, "and she will thank you
for your kindness in sitting here so long with me."

"I am the person who lodges just below you; I mistook this room for
my own; pardon me, and let me come again, for Jamie has already done