'I'll be ever so good if you'll only get well,' said Harold. 'I wouldn't
have gone to that there place to-night; but 'tis so terribly dull, and
one must do something.'

'But in church-time, and on Sunday!'

'Well, I'll never do it again; but it was so sunshiny, and they were all
making such fun, you see, and it did seem so stuffy, and so long and
tiresome, I couldn't help it, you see.'

Alfred did not think of asking how, if Harold could not help it this
time, he could be sure of never doing so again. He was more inclined to
dwell on himself, and went back to that one sentence, 'God judges us for
everything.' Harold thought he meant it for him, and exclaimed,

'Yes, yes, I know, but--oh, Alf, you shouldn't frighten one so; I never
meant no harm.'

'I wasn't thinking about that,' sighed Alfred. 'I was wishing I'd been a
better lad; but I've been worse, and crosser, and more unkind, ever since
I was ill. O Harold! what shall I do?'

'Don't go on that way,' said Harold, crying bitterly. 'Say your prayers,
and maybe you will get well; and then in the morning I'll ask Mr. Cope to
come down, and he'll tell you not to mind.'

'I wouldn't listen to Mr. Cope when he told me to be sorry for my sins;
and oh, Harold, if we are not sorry, you know they will not be taken
away.'

'Well, but you are sorry now.'

'I have heard tell that there are two ways of being sorry, and I don't
know if mine is the right.'

'I tell you I'll fetch Mr. Cope in the morning; and when the doctor comes
he'll be sure to say it is all a pack of stuff, and you need not be
fretting yourself.'

When Harold awoke in the morning, he found himself lying wrapped in his
coverlet on Alfred's bed, and then he remembered all about it, and looked
in haste, as though he expected to see some sudden and terrible change in
his brother.

But Alfred was looking cheerful, he had awakened without discomfort; and
with some amusement, was watching the starts and movements, the grunts
and groans, of Harold's waking. The morning air and the ordinary look of
things, had driven away the gloomy thoughts of evening, and he chiefly
thought of them as something strange and dreadful, and yet not quite a
dream.

'Don't tell Mother,' whispered Harold, recollecting himself, and starting
up quietly.

'But you'll fetch Mr. Cope,' said Alfred earnestly.

Harold had begun not to like the notion of meeting Mr. Cope, lest he
should hear something of yesterday's doin