vor. He was treated with motherly kindness and tenderness, yet
firmly checked when he went wrong. From the first he had a well-spring
of strength against temptation, in the long letters which every mail
brought from his parents; and all his childish affections were entwined
round the fancied image of a brother born since he had left India. In
his bedroom there hung a cherub's head, drawn in pencil by his mother,
and this winged child was inextricably identified in his imagination
with his "little brother Vernon." He loved it dearly, and whenever he
went astray, nothing weighed on his mind so strongly as the thought,
that if he were naughty he would teach little Vernon to be naughty too
when he came home.

And Nature also--wisest, gentlest, holiest of teachers--was with him in
his childhood. Fairholm Cottage, where his aunt lived, was situated in
the beautiful Vale of Ayrton, and a clear stream ran through the valley
at the bottom of Mrs Trevor's orchard. Eric loved this stream, and was
always happy as he roamed by its side, or over the low green hills and
scattered dingles which lent unusual loveliness to every winding of its
waters. He was allowed to go about a good deal by himself, and it did
him good. He grew up fearless and self-dependent, and never felt the
want of amusement. The garden and orchard supplied him a theatre for
endless games and romps, sometimes with no other companion than his
cousin and his dog, and sometimes with the few children of his own age
whom he knew in the hamlet. Very soon he forgot all about India; it
only hung like a distant golden haze on the horizon of his memory. When
asked if he remembered it, he would say thoughtfully, that in dreams and
at some other times, he saw a little boy, with long curly hair, running
about in a flower-garden, near a great river, in a place where the air
was very bright. But whether the little boy was himself or his brother
Vernon, whom he had never seen, he couldn't quite tell.

But, above all, it was happy for Eric that his training was religious
and enlightened. With Mrs Trevor and her daughter, religion was not a
system but a habit--not a theory but a continued act of life. All was
simple, sweet, and unaffected, about their charity and their devotions.
They loved God, and they did all the good they could to those around
them. The floating gossip and ill-nature of the little village never
affected them; it melted away insensibly in the prese