f them. One by one the books were brought from the Room
of Sacred Memories until the boy knew them all.

"Did you read all of those books when you were little, Grandma?" Rodney
once asked.

"Not when I was little, dear," was the quiet reply. "But I read them
to a little boy, though, who was as fond of them then as you are now."

"Whose little boy was he, Grandma?"

"He was my little boy, Rodney."

"Was he? Isn't that funny? I didn't know that. What was his name?"

"It was Alec."

"And where is he now?"

"He grew to be a big man, and one day he went away from home, and--and
I never saw him again."

"What are you crying for, Grandma?" the boy, asked, suddenly noticing
that tears were streaming down Mrs. Royal's cheeks.

"I was thinking of my boy Alec, dear. He went away and never came
back."

"Why didn't he?"

"Because he was killed."

"Oh!" and Rodney clasped his hands together,

"How was he killed, Grandma?"

"He was on a train which ran off the track. Many people were killed,
and Alec was one of them."

"And that was his room, was it?" Rodney asked. "And those were his
books which he had when he was a little boy?"

"Yes, dear. But go to sleep now, and I shall tell you more about Alec
some other time."

So free was the life which Rodney led, that some of the neighbours
often shook their heads, and prophesied trouble.

"If that boy Rod Royal isn't looked after more'n he is he will come to
a bad end, mark my word," Tom Dunker ponderously remarked to his wife
one evening. "He's runnin' wild, that's what he is."

"Well, what can you expect of a pauper child?" his wife replied.

"Oh, I know that, Jane. I'm not blamin' him; he can't help it. But
them who has the bringin' up of him are at fault. What do the Royals
know about the trainin' of a child? Didn't the only chick they ever
had go wild, an' him a parson's son, too? I went to school with Alec,
an' I tell ye they kept a tight rein on him. I was sure that he'd be a
parson like his dad. But, no, sirree, jist as soon as he got his
freedom, he kicked over the traces like a young colt, an' went away."

Rodney gave the neighbours numerous causes for criticism.
Unconsciously and boy-like, he did things which were often misconstrued
as downright badness, whereas the boy had not the slightest intention
of doing anything wrong. He was simply natural, while many of his
critical elders were most unnatural. They had their own hide-bound