most of the other groups, for the older boy and girl looked decidedly
tired, when suddenly they all stopped; the servant girl opened her mouth
until it remained fixed in the form of a round O; the baby raised its
arms and crowed; the elder boy and girl uttered a glad shout and ran
forward.

"Father, father, you here?" said the boy. "You here?" echoed the girl,
and the whole cavalcade drew up in front of Charlotte and the thin
clergyman. The boy in an instant was on his father's knee, and the girl,
helping herself mightily by Charlotte's dress, had got on the bench.

The baby seeing this began to cry. The small nurse seemed incapable of
action, and Charlotte herself had to come to the rescue. She lifted the
little seven months old creature out of its carriage, and placed it in
its father's arms.

He raised his eyes gratefully to her face and placed his arm round the
baby.

"Oh! I'm falling," said the girl. "This seat is so slippy, may I sit on
your knee?"

It seemed the most natural thing in the world for Charlotte to take this
strange, shabbily dressed little girl into her embrace.

The child began to stroke down and admire her soft furs.

"Aren't they lovely?" she said. "Oh, Harold, look! Feel 'em, Harold;
they're like pussies."

Harold, absorbed with his father, turned his full blue eyes round
gravely and fixed them not on the furs, but on the strange lady's face.

"Father," he said in a slow, solemn tone, "may I kiss that pretty lady?"

"My dear boy, no, no. I am ashamed of you. Now run away, children; go on
with your walk. Nurse, take baby."

The children were evidently accustomed to implicit obedience. They went
without a word.

"But I will kiss Harold first," said Charlotte Harman, and she stooped
down and pressed her lips to the soft round cheek.

"Thank you," said the clergyman. Again he looked into her face and
smiled.

The smile on his careworn face reminded Charlotte of the smile on St.
Stephen's face, when he was dying. It was unearthly, angelic; but it was
also very fleeting. Presently he added in a grave tone,----

"You have evidently the great gift of attracting the heart of a little
child. Pardon me if I add a hope that you may never lose it."

"Is that possible?" asked Charlotte.

"Yes; when you lose the child spirit, the power will go."

"Oh! then I hope it never will," she replied.

"It never will if you keep the Christ bright within you," he answered.
Then he raised his hat t