started
to his feet.

'Is there onything ye want, Mr. Ericson?' he said, with service standing
in his eyes.

'A small bundle I think I brought up with me,' replied the youth.

It was not there. Robert rushed down-stairs, and returned with it--a
nightshirt and a hairbrush or so, tied up in a blue cotton handkerchief.
This was all that Robert was able to do for Ericson that evening.

He went home and dreamed about him. He called at The Boar's Head the
next morning before going to school, but Ericson was not yet up. When he
called again as soon as morning school was over, he found that they had
persuaded him to keep his bed, but Miss Letty took him up to his room.
He looked better, was pleased to see Robert, and spoke to him kindly.
Twice yet Robert called to inquire after him that day, and once more he
saw him, for he took his tea up to him.

The next day Ericson was much better, received Robert with a smile, and
went out with him for a stroll, for all his companions were gone, and of
some students who had arrived since he did not know any. Robert took him
to his grandmother, who received him with stately kindness. Then they
went out again, and passed the windows of Captain Forsyth's house. Mary
St. John was playing. They stood for a moment, almost involuntarily, to
listen. She ceased.

'That's the music of the spheres,' said Ericson, in a low voice, as they
moved on.

'Will you tell me what that means?' asked Robert. 'I've come upon 't
ower an' ower in Milton.'

Thereupon Ericson explained to him what Pythagoras had taught about the
stars moving in their great orbits with sounds of awful harmony,
too grandly loud for the human organ to vibrate in response to their
music--hence unheard of men. And Ericson spoke as if he believed it.
But after he had spoken, his face grew sadder than ever; and, as if to
change the subject, he said, abruptly,

'What a fine old lady your grandmother is, Robert!'

'Is she?' returned Robert.

'I don't mean to say she's like Miss Letty,' said Ericson. 'She's an
angel!'

A long pause followed. Robert's thoughts went roaming in their usual
haunts.

'Do you think, Mr. Ericson,' he said, at length, taking up the old
question still floating unanswered in his mind, 'do you think if a devil
was to repent God would forgive him?'

Ericson turned and looked at him. Their eyes met. The youth wondered at
the boy. He had recognized in him a younger brother, one who had begun
to ask ques