earnestly at Edgar's pale, passionless face.

"Did he really? Are you sorry?"

"Oh, I dare say he did not know! and if he did, I cannot help it; so what
is the use of being sorry or glad? Perhaps you may not, just as likely."

"But," said Arthur, "if I had heard any one say that about me, I should
think more about it than you seem to do."

"Why, it would be all right for you, because you are converted, you know."

"But, Edgar," and Arthur looked very earnestly into his dark, sad eyes,
"don't you wish you were?"

Edgar's eyes fell before his gaze. He looked away, and seemed to be
dreamily watching the glistening sunbeams, darting through the trees; but
presently the tears gathered, and he said, with a weary sigh,

"Oh, Arthur, if you only knew how much I wish it! if you only knew what I
would give, to know I was converted!"

"Didn't your mother ever talk to you about it?" asked Arthur, remembering
the sweet words that had fallen into his own heart; "or your father?"

"I don't remember my mother," said Edgar, "and papa died two years ago;
but it was two years before that, when I saw him last."

"Poor Edgar," said Arthur softly; for, though he did not say this had been
a bitter grief to him, there was something in his tone so hopelessly sad
and sorrowful, that the tears came into Arthur's eyes to hear it.

Edgar saw the tears in Arthur's eyes, and a little faint smile came in his
own. "You are very different from the others, Arthur," he said. "I haven't
had any one kind to me, since papa went to India."

"Did your father go to India?" Arthur asked brightly. "So did mine. So we
are alike, then."

"Ah, but yours will come back some day, and your mother too; but mine will
never, never come back any more!"

"Tell me about them," said Arthur.

"Well, you know I told you mamma died ever so long ago, so I don't
remember her at all; but papa used to tell me how nice she was, and he
used to show me her picture."

"What kind of a face had she?" asked Arthur. "I wonder whether she was
like my mother."

"Well, she had very nice eyes, brown ones."

"Mamma's eyes were blue, I think," said Arthur.

"And brown hair; and she looked very kind."

"Oh, then they are alike in one thing!"

"Papa used to keep it in his pocket," Edgar continued, "and he used to
show it to me often when grandmamma was not in the room. I don't think she
liked it, because I remember once when we were looking at it she came into
the room, an