" was the reply, "but she's at home. Oh, mum," with a
sudden crimsoning of the little face, "may I fetch Billy?"

And taking courage from the bright young face, he gravely marched to an
angle of the rock, and brought out another little creature, with another
grey uniform and another hammer.

"This is Billy, mum," he said. "Billy never had no mother. Kiss Billy."

The young wife felt the tears rush to her eyes. "You two poor babies!"
she cried. And then, forgetting that she was a lady, dressed in silk
and lace, she fell on her knees in the dust, and, folding the friendless
pair in her arms, wept over them.

"What is the matter, Sylvia?" said Frere, when he came up. "You've been
crying."

"Nothing, Maurice; at least, I will tell you by and by."

When they were alone that evening, she told him of the two little boys,
and he laughed. "Artful little humbugs," he said, and supported his
argument by so many illustrations of the precocious wickedness of
juvenile felons, that his wife was half convinced against her will.

* * * * *

Unfortunately, when Sylvia went away, Tommy and Billy put into execution
a plan which they had carried in their poor little heads for some weeks.

"I can do it now," said Tommy. "I feel strong."

"Will it hurt much, Tommy?" said Billy, who was not so courageous.

"Not so much as a whipping."

"I'm afraid! Oh, Tom, it's so deep! Don't leave me, Tom!"

The bigger boy took his little handkerchief from his neck, and with it
bound his own left hand to his companion's right.

"Now I can't leave you."

"What was it the lady that kissed us said, Tommy?"

"Lord, have pity on them two fatherless children!" repeated Tommy.
"Let's say it together."

And so the two babies knelt on the brink of the cliff, and, raising the
bound hands together, looked up at the sky, and ungrammatically said,
"Lord have pity on we two fatherless children!" And then they kissed
each other, and "did it".

* * * * *

The intelligence, transmitted by the ever-active semaphore, reached the
Commandant in the midst of dinner, and in his agitation he blurted it
out.

"These are the two poor things I saw in the morning," cried Sylvia. "Oh,
Maurice, these two poor babies driven to suicide!"

"Condemning their young souls to everlasting fire," said Meekin,
piously.

"Mr. Meekin! How can you talk like that? Poor little