--the trustful loving
arms folded round each brother's neck--the closed lids and parted lips--
made an exquisite picture, and one never to be forgotten. Side by side,
without a word, the parents knelt down, and with eyes wet with tears of
joyfulness, poured out their hearts in passionate prayer for their young
and beloved boys.

Very happily the next month glided away; a new life seemed opened to
Eric in the world of rich affections which had unfolded itself before
him. His parents--above all, his mother--were everything that he had
longed for; and Vernon more than fulfilled to his loving heart the ideal
of his childish fancy. He was never tired of playing with and
patronising his little brother, and their rambles by stream and hill
made those days appear the happiest he had ever spent. Every evening
(for having lived all his life at home, he had not yet laid aside the
habits of early childhood) he said his prayers by his mother's knee; and
at the end of one long summer's day, when prayers were finished, and
full of life and happiness he lay down to sleep, "Oh, mother," he said,
"I am so happy--I like to say my prayers when you are here."

"Yes, my boy, and God loves to hear them."

"Aren't there some who never say prayers, mother?"

"Very many, love, I fear."

"How unhappy they must be! _I_ shall _always_ love to say my prayers."

"Ah, Eric, God grant that you may."

And the fond mother hoped he always would. But these words often came
back to Eric's mind in later and less happy days--days when that gentle
hand could no longer rest lovingly on his head--when those mild blue
eyes were dim with tears, and the poor boy, changed in heart and life,
often flung himself down with an unreproaching conscience to prayer-less
sleep.

It had been settled that in another week Eric was to go to school in the
Isle of Roslyn. Mr Williams had hired a small house in the town of
Ellan, and intended to stay there for his year of furlough, at the end
of which period Vernon was to be left at Fairholm, and Eric in the house
of the head-master of the school. Eric enjoyed the prospect of all
things, and he hardly fancied that Paradise itself could be happier than
a life at the sea-side with his father and mother and Vernon, combined
with the commencement of schoolboy dignity. When the time for the
voyage came, his first glimpse of the sea, and the sensation of sailing
over it with only a few planks between him and the deep wa