s Easter Sunday morning, Mr. and Mrs. Green expected
nothing else. Jane elected to remain at home and mind the baby and
cook the dinner, and the old couple, with their stalwart son-in-law
on one side and Tom on the other, found themselves places in the old
village church.

It was all very quiet and nice, Jim thought.

His heart was sore for his little sister Nellie and he felt alone
in the world, cut off from all his childhood, all that they two had
shared together.

It had never occurred to Jane to offer him any sympathy in his loss.
She had hardly realised the loss, only the coming of a burden. And in
not going to the funeral, Jim had an odd feeling of neglecting Nellie,
though his common sense told him it could make no difference to her.

The Easter hymns comforted him strangely. His mind seemed to pass from
the earthly grave to the heavenly Resurrection with a thrill of hope
that matched with the sunshine, the bursting of green leaves, the
twitter of the birds and the blue sky above.

On that happy Easter morning,
All the graves their dead restore,
Father, sister, child, and mother
Meet once more.

And so he came to another thought. Was _he_ going to meet Nellie?

He glanced across at Tom. The quiet patience of his face touched him.
Tom had lost something too. Something more hopeless, more irremediable
than even the death of a sister, and yet there was a strength in his
look which seemed to Jim not to be of earth, but from above. Tom and
Nellie were on one side, and he, Jim, was on another.

The two young men went for a walk together in the afternoon, and it
was like Tom to be the first to touch on Jim's sorrow.

"You're wearing a black tie, Jim," he said.

So Jim told him all about Nellie, his pretty little gentle sister
Nellie, and then of her child and of how he had promised to take him,
and look after him, but he did not mention Jane. After all, Jane was
Tom's sister.

Tom listened gravely. There was sympathy in the very way he listened,
and Jim felt it. He longed to ask Tom if he approved of his taking
Harry, but some of the strength which had grown in him since his
decision, kept him silent. He _had_ decided and what was the use of
courting disapproval. But Tom was not one to withhold commendation, of
which there is so little in this world's intercourse, and he gave his
verdict unasked.

"I'm glad you did," he said heartily, "poor little chap, what else
could you do? It's q