to Tony of this Master, as one who was
always very near at hand.

"I s'pose he takes a bit o' notice o' the little un," said Tony, "when he
comes in now and then of an evening."

"Ay, does he!" answered Oliver, earnestly. "My boy, he loves every child
as if it was his very own, and it is his own in one sense. Didn't I read
you last night how he said, 'Suffer the little children to come unto me,
and forbid them not.' Why, he'd love all the young children in the world,
if they weren't hindered from coming to him."

"I should very much like to see him some day," pursued Tony,
reflectively, "and the rest of them,--Peter, and John, and them. I s'pose
they are getting pretty old by now, aren't they?"

"They are dead," said Oliver.

"All of 'em?" asked Tony.

"All of them," he repeated.

"Dear, dear!" cried Tony, his eyes glistening. "Whatever did the Master
do when they all died? I'm very sorry for him now. He's had a many
troubles, hasn't he?"

"Yes, yes," replied old Oliver, with a faltering voice. "He was called a
man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief. Nobody ever bore so many
troubles as him."

"How long is it ago since they all died?" asked Tony.

"I can't rightly say," he answered. "I heard once, but it is gone out of
my head. I only know it was the same when I was a boy. It must have been
a long, long time ago."

"The same when you was a boy!" repeated Tony, in a tone of
disappointment. "It must ha' been a long while ago. I thought all along
as the Master was alive now."

"So he is, so he is!" exclaimed old Oliver, eagerly. "I'll read to you
all about it. They put him to death on the cross, and buried him in a
rocky grave; but he is the Prince of Life, and he came to life again
three days after, and now he can die no more. His own words to John
were, 'I am he that liveth, and was dead; and behold, I am alive
forevermore.' What else can it mean but that he is living now, and will
never die again?"

Tony made no answer. He sat with his sharp, unboyish face gazing intently
into the fire; for by this time autumn had set in, and the old man was
chilly of an evening. A very uncertain, dim idea was dawning upon him
that this master and friend of old Oliver's was a being very different
from an ordinary man, however great and rich he might be. He had grown to
love the thought of him, and to listen attentively to the book which told
the manner of life he led; but it was a chill to find out that he could
not