any of his burning questions.

At last he grew impatient. "Father, do tell me, shall you take your guns
with you? and mayn't I have one?"

"Hush, hush, dear, do not be so excitable! There are no bears to shoot
where we thought of going, nor wild animals of any kind, you may be quite
sure, or we should not have dreamed of taking Stella and Michael there for
their holidays."

"But, mother, dear, they would be quite safe with father and me to take
care of them. Do let's go to a part where there are bears! I'd give
anything to bring home a fur rug with a great head on it, and say I'd shot
it myself."

"Paul, do not talk any more now. Father is dreadfully worried, and has a
very great deal to think of. You understand, dear. Now fasten your
collar and go to your place, I hear the servants coming in to prayers."
And Mrs. Anketell stooped and kissed him. "Pray God to help dear father
in his troubles," she whispered, "and make us all brave to bear our
share."

Paul went to his seat quietly, wondering very much what it all meant.
Surely his father had plenty of courage to face anything and everything,
and he knew that he himself had. As for his mother and Stella--well,
mother did not need to be brave with father to take care of her, and
Stella was only a girl, and no one would expect much of her; as for
Michael, he was only six, a mere baby. He sat in his chair puzzled, and
wondering, and coming no nearer a solution of his mother's meaning. But
Paul was soon to learn it, and he never forgot the hour which followed,
when the servants had left the room, and he and his father and mother were
seated alone at the table.

The urn was hissing and singing, the sweet spring sunshine shone in on the
silver on the table, on the bright covers, and on the big bowl of yellow
daffodils on the old oak sideboard. A deep consciousness of all these
details, and of the beauty of the scene, was impressed on his mind then--
though at the time he was wholly unaware of the fact--and through all his
after life remained with him so vividly that he could recall every detail
of the scene, and the look of everything in the low, familiar room as it
was that morning. He could recall, too, the unusual gravity of his
parents, the anxious face of his mother, and how the tears sprang to her
eyes when his father looked up and noticed her anxiety and tried to cheer
her.

"Darling, you must not take it so hardly," he said tenderly; "things might