e sorrow nor
crying in heaven? Oh, dear Miss Graystone, I know you sometimes feel
just like that, for I have seen it in your eyes, and you look just as I
have often dreamed my own dear mother did. And, don't be angry, but
every night, when I say my prayer, I tell Him about you, and pray that
you may be taken away from these wicked people, you and little Ruth.
Last night I had a dream. I thought I stood upon the bank of a broad
river, and the water moaned and whispered like human voices, and came up
around me, and just as I was beginning to be afraid, a sweet, low voice
came to me, borne across the waters, and mingled with their murmur,
'fear not,' and then I thought that I knew this was the river of death
that you had told me about in the Sabbath School, and I clasped my hands
together, and cried out for my dear, dear teacher, and then the water
rose about me till, as it reached my lips, I awoke."

"Poor, little one," said Clemence, parting the boy's hair from off his
forehead, with a mother touch, and as she gazed down into the innocent
eyes, with their far-off, dreamy look, a foreboding of the future came
to her, that she put away with a shudder.

"Come, children," she said, taking a hand of each, "we will retrace our
steps homeward." She stooped and kissed the child's forehead, as she
parted from him. "Good-bye, Johnny," she said cheerfully, "be a good
boy, and try to remember all that I have told you."

The child gave the required promise, and turned away, but came back a
moment after:

"Miss Graystone," he said, standing before her, and raising his eyes
fearlessly to hers, "don't you think I have always tried to be good?"

"Yes, Johnny," she answered truthfully, "I know that you do. You are a
real little hero, and your patience and fortitude have often set me an
example, while I have grieved over the melancholy circumstances that
have made you so old in sorrow."

"Oh, thank you for that, dear, dearest Miss Graystone." The child was
sobbing convulsively, so that Clemence became frightened for him.

"Why, my poor child, you must not grieve so. I cannot bear to see you so
unhappy," she said, bending down to him, "try and smile for me once,
dear. Look now, at that cloud floating above you. See how it breaks,
revealing the blue sky beyond, and think what I told you of the cloud
with the silver lining. Don't you remember it, Johnny?"

"Remember it? oh yes," he said eagerly. "I have never forgotten a word
you hav