leave my
boy's training to you.'

Chapter VIII

A LETTER FROM ABROAD.

'They look like the gates in the City.'

Bobby and True were lying upon the grass under a shady group of trees.
They had been out motoring with their father all the morning, and had
stopped to have their lunch up a by-road. They had had a merry meal,
and then after it was over Mr. Allonby told them they had better stay
where they were whilst he took his motor back to the neighbouring
village to get some slight repairs done to it.

'It is very warm, so stay here quietly, and don't wander far from this
place, or I shall not find you again.'

He went. For a short time they amused themselves quietly by the
roadside. Then they thought they would like to see where the road took
them, and walked up it until suddenly they were stopped by some very
tall white iron gates. They peeped through the bars of them. There
was a small lodge inside, but there seemed no one about. A long,
broad, beautifully-kept drive went straight up to a white, turreted
house in the distance. It looked almost like a castle. They tried to
open the gates, but they were locked. Then they threw themselves down
upon the grass outside, and Bobby thoughtfully said, as he eyed the
gates in front of them:

'They look like the gates in the City.'

'What city?' asked True.

'It's a Bible city. Do you know about the gates kept by angels? They
lead up to heaven, and the road is just like that in there, only there
are people walking up them in white dresses. We shall have to get
frough them some day.

'It'll be very nice,' said True comfortably.

Bobby looked at her, and his mouth pursed itself up gravely.

'Everybodies don't get frough. Some are shut outside.'

'Oh! Why?'

'Because they haven't white dresses on. My grandmother has a beautiful
Bible with beautiful picshers in it, and the picsher of the lovely
gates says: "Blessed are they that wash their robes in the blood of the
Lamb, that they may have right to the tree of life, and enter in frough
the gates into the City." I learnt that tex'. Lady Isobel teached it
to me.'

'What's the tree of life?' asked True.

Bobby pointed inside the gate to a big beech-tree halfway up the drive.

'It's like that, but it has lovely golden apples on it. And the angels
stand at the gate, and won't let nobody frough with a dirty dress.'

True glanced at her brown holland frock, which was smeared with green.

'My