e aid and sympathy; ever ready to defend the weak,
feared not the strong. For every harsh word, Harry gave a kind one
in return. I have known him to carry more than half his breakfast to
a little lame boy whose mother was very poor. Harry was brave and
true; he would confess his own faults, he would hide those of
others. He had a thirst for knowledge. He got all his lessons well
at school, and he stood high in his class. But what he was
particularly remarkable for, was his love of all beautiful things,
and most especially of wild flowers. He would make wreaths of them
and give them to his mother, and he was very fond of putting one on
my study table, when he could contrive to place it there without my
seeing him. Harry knew all the green nooks where the houstonia was
to be found in the early spring, and it was he that ever brought me
the beautiful gentian that opens its fringed petals in the middle of
the chilly October day. On Sunday, and on all holidays, Harry always
had a flower or a bit of green in the button-hole of his jacket.
Every sunny window in his mother's house had an old teapot or broken
pitcher in it, containing one of Harry's plants whose bright
blossoms hid defects and infirmities. He also loved music
passionately; he whistled so sweetly that it was a delight to hear
him. Yet there was something in his notes that always went to your
heart and made you sad, they were so mournful.

Often in the summer time, he would go, towards evening, into the
fields and lie down in the long grass; and there he would look
straight up into the clear deep blue sky, and whistle such plaintive
tunes, that, beautiful as they were, it made your heart ache to hear
them. You could not see him, and it seemed as if you were listening
to the song of a spirit.

Alas! Harry was not happy; God's glorious world was all around him;
his soul was tuned to the harmony of heaven, and yet his young heart
ached; and tears--bitter, scalding tears--often ran down his smooth,
round cheek, and then he would run and hide his head in his mother's
lap, that blessed home for a troubled spirit.

One day, I discovered the cause of Harry's melancholy. I was
returning from a walk, and saw him at a little brook that ran behind
my house, washing his face and hands vehemently, and rubbing them
very hard. I then remembered that I had often seen him there doing
the same thing. "It seems to me, Harry," I said, "that your face and
hands are clean now; why d