nd though it always met
with prompt correction, his cousin had latterly found it difficult to
subdue. She felt, in a word, that he was outgrowing her rule. Beyond a
certain age no boy of spirit can be safely guided by a woman's
hand alone.

Eric Williams was now twelve years old. His father was a civilian in
India, and was returning on furlough to England after a long absence.
Eric had been born in India, but had been sent to England by his parents
at an early age, in charge of a lady friend of his mother. The parting,
which had been agony to his father and mother, he was too young to feel;
indeed the moment itself passed by without his being conscious of it.
They took him on board the ship, and, after a time, gave him a hammer
and some nails to play with. These had always been to him a supreme
delight, and while he hammered away, Mr. and Mrs. Williams, denying
themselves, for the child's sake, even one more tearful embrace, went
ashore in the boat and left him. It was not till the ship sailed that he
was told he would not see them again for a long, long time. Poor child,
his tears and cries were wild when he first understood it; but the
sorrows of four years old are very transient, and before a week was
over, little Eric felt almost reconciled to his position, and had become
the universal pet and plaything of every one on board, from Captain
Broadland down to the cabin boy, with whom he very soon struck up an
acquaintance. Yet twice a day at least, he would shed a tear, as he
lisped his little prayer, kneeling at Mrs. Munro's knee, and asked God
"to bless his dear dear father and mother, and make him a good boy."

When Eric arrived in England, he was intrusted to the care of a widowed
aunt, whose daughter, Fanny, had the main charge of his early teaching.
At first, the wayward little Indian seemed likely to form no accession
to the quiet household, but he soon became its brightest ornament and
pride. Everything was in his favor at the pleasant home of Mrs. Trevor.
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 bed-room
there hung a cherub's head, drawn in pencil by his mother, and this
picture was inextricably identified in h