ing heart."

I have told you of one day of little Tom's life, when he was eight years
old, and lived with his mother. I must now pass over a year, and tell
you of a very different kind of life he had then to lead. His mother had
never been very strong, and had had a good deal of anxiety; at last she
was taken ill, and soon felt that there was no hope for her recovery.
For a long time the thought of leaving her little boy was a great distress
to her, and a great trial to her faith. But God strengthened her, and
sent his peace into her soul, and before her death she was content to
leave her precious child in his hands, who is a Father to the
fatherless, and defendeth the cause of the widow.

When she felt that she had not many more days to live, she sent for her
husband's brother, who lived in a town not many miles off; and gave her
little Tom in charge to him to bring up.

"There are a few pounds in the savings-bank--I don't know how many
exactly--and the furniture and bit of stock in the shop; perhaps they
would be enough to bring him up to be a joiner, like his father before
him."

She spoke feebly, and with many pauses. Her brother-in-law, though a
rough kind of man, wished to do all he could to make her feel easy in
her last moments, and touched with the reference to his dead brother,
promised all she required.

"I'll take him back with me after"--the funeral, he was going to say,
but he stopped. She smiled gently, fully understanding his meaning.

"We shall, may be, not be so tender with him as you've been; but I'll
see he comes to no harm. It will be a good thing for him to rough it a
bit with other children,--he's too nesh for a boy; but I'll pay them if
they aren't kind to him in the long run, never fear."

Though this speech was not exactly what she liked, there was quite
enough of good feeling in it to make her thankful for such a protector
and friend for her boy. And so, thankful for the joys she had had, and
thankful for the sorrows which had taught her meekness, thankful for
life, and thankful for death, she died.

Her brother-in-law arranged all as she had wished. After the quiet
simple funeral was over, he took Tom by the hand, and set off on the
six-mile walk to his home. Tom had cried till he could cry no more, but
sobs came quivering up from his heart every now and then, as he passed
some well-remembered cottage, or thorn-bush, or tree on the road. His
uncle was very sorry for him, but did not