een before,
and went away, treading softly as every one did in the shadowed house.
Little Angel left off crying and looked up at the stranger, who stood
there by the door, with a white set face of pain which frightened her.
Then she got up obediently and came to him, and held up a little pale
face to be kissed, as she had learnt to do to her friends. And the
tall lad caught her up suddenly and held her tight in a clasp which
hurt her, and sat down in her little chair and burst into strong
weeping over her curly hair. And Angel, frightened as she was, knew
she ought to try and comfort him, and so stroked the hands that held
her so tightly, and whispered tremulously that by-and-bye papa and
mamma would be coming back, for Penny had cried over her because they
were gone away, and this mysterious brother must be grieving about it
too. And once or twice he said out loud, 'I did love them! I did love
them!' and his voice sounded quite fierce, only he held her so close
all the time that Angel felt he could not be angry with her. And then
baby Betty woke and cried, and the four-year-old sister and the big
brother soothed her between them, until Penny came back to the door and
called softly, and cried afresh to see the young gentleman with Betty
in his arms and Angel holding on to his coat. And he kissed them both
quickly and went away, and Angelica never saw him again. He went
abroad, she knew, very soon afterwards, for Penny told her to pray that
the ship might not go down on the way; but Cousin Amelia never talked
about him, and Angel, with the quick intuition of a little child, soon
learnt that she did not care to speak of him. But if Angel spoke
little she thought the more.

All her pitiful little heart had gone out to the big brother who had
cried so about papa and mamma, and had said he loved them as Angel
loved them herself, and had hushed Betty to sleep, and held her and
kissed her as kind, quiet Cousin Amelia never did.

When she and Betty grew older and went to school, and heard other girls
talk about their brothers, Angel added all the good things she learnt
to her fancies about her brother abroad, and Betty's active imagination
improved upon the picture, until they hardly knew how much of it was
their own painting and how much belonged to that dim recollection of
Angel's childhood.

And now the fancies had come suddenly to an end which was real enough,
and the brother would never come home to live with th