and
choking with the effort to restrain his tears, could only grasp the
proffered hand in silence, and turn away his head, unable to look
up,--almost unable to bear the pent-up grief that throbbed at his
heart, and tightened his chest with a sense of suffocation.

"Why, Sid, what's this? Dear old fellow, what's the matter?" was
Walter's astonished inquiry, when a boy near whispered in his ear the
brief words,--

"His father's dead!"

That explained all; and Walter, twining his arm round his friend, led
him away to a quiet spot, where they could weep together. The greater
grief so completely absorbed Sidney on his first meeting with Walter,
that it was not until the next day that any mention was made between
them of how this bereavement would affect the future. Young and
prosperous as Walter was, he knew well enough how sad it would be for
his friend to lose the advantages of education just at the time when
his studies would be needed to fit him for some pursuit in life.

Meanwhile, as Sidney's aunt had not been able to send the money for
the poor lad to go so long a journey as from West Cornwall to
Liverpool, to attend his father's funeral, there was no immediate
hurry at the school in preparing for the youth's departure. Walter,
therefore, had time to carry out a plan which his affection suggested.
He wrote an urgent letter to his father, filled with praises of
Sidney, and accounts of all the help which his cleverness and conduct
had afforded to him (Walter), and earnestly pleading that he might
have the gratification of paying for a year or more schooling for his
orphan friend, adding, as a concluding argument,--

"You know, papa, that I have forty pounds that aunt Margaret put in
the savings bank for me, to do as I like with; and how could I spend
it better, or so well, as in helping a good clever fellow like Sidney?
It would be a real treat to me--the best I could have; and you
promised to increase my pocket-money: you needn't; I can screw myself
down famously, if you'll only give it to help Sid, who's always been
helping me, I can tell you."

Walter was too earnest, it seemed, to pick and choose his words. He
meant to have corrected and rewritten his letter, but there was no
time; so he sent it, faults and all. And his father, in reading it,
felt the heart-throb that beat in his boy's generous words; and though
a man not at all demonstrative, he was observed to be taken as if with
a sudden cold in his head