but the general rejoicing in
little Dickie's wonderful escape.

'Well,' said Aubrey to his sisters, after a visit to his nephew's room,
'Dickie has the best right to him, certainly, to-day. It is an
absolute appropriation! They were talking away with all their might
when I came up, but came to a stop when I went in, and Master Dick sent
me to the right-about.'

The truth was, that Dickie, who, with eyes and ears all alive, had
gathered up some fragments of Leonard's history, had taken this
opportunity of catechizing him upon it in a manner that it was
impossible to elude, and which the child's pretty tact carried off, as
it did many things which would not have been tolerated if done rudely
and abruptly. Step by step, in the way of question and remark, he led
Leonard to tell him all that had happened; and when once fairly
embarked in the reminiscence, there was in it a kind of peace and
pleasure. The fresh, loving, wondering sympathy of the little boy was
unspeakably comforting; and besides, the bringing the facts in their
simple form to the grasp of the childish mind, restored their
proportion, which their terrible consequences had a good deal
disturbed. They seemed to pass from the present to the historical, and
to assume the balance that they took in the child's mind, coming newly
upon them. It was like bathing in a clear limpid stream, that washed
away the remains of morbid oppression.

'I wish mamma was here,' said the little friend, at last.

'Do you want her? Are you missing her, my dear?'

'I miss her always,' said Dickie. 'But it was not that--only mamma
always makes everybody so happy; and she would be so fond of you,
because you have had so much trouble.'

'But, Dickie, don't you think I am happy to be with your grandfather
and aunt, and hoping to see my own sisters very soon--your aunt, who
taught me what bore me through it all?'

'Aunt Ethel?' cried Dickie, considering. 'I like Aunt Ethel very much;
but then she is not like mamma!'

There could be no doubt that Leonard was much better and happier after
this adventure. Reluctantly, Dickie let him go back to Cocksmoor,
where his services in church-decking and in singing had been too much
depended on to be dispensed with; but he was to come back with Richard
for the family assembly on Christmas evening.

Moreover, Gertrude, who was quite herself again, having made her peace
with the Cheviots, and endured the reception of her apologies, seiz