bless his dear, unselfish heart! Come
here to me, my child," he added with a pleasant smile. The little Julia
looked hard at him from behind the shelter of her nurse's gown for a
moment, but soon lost all fear, for there was something attractive to
her in the old man's snow-white hair and venerable face, as, surely,
there is commonly a sweet sympathy between the guileless childhood of
infancy and the holy childhood of God--fearing old age. So she shyly
drew towards him, and let him place her on his knee; and then she looked
up wonderingly at him, as his tears fell fast on her brown hair, and his
voice was choked with sobs. "Yes," he said, "my precious Miss Julia,
you're the very image of what your blessed mother was at your age. I've
had her like this on my knee scores of times. Ah! well, perhaps a
brighter day's coming for us all."

We must now leave the old man happy over his gentle charge, and go back
to the previous day when Amos, at luncheon time, received the little
note which so greatly disturbed him. That note was as follows:--

"Respected Sir,--About ten o'clock this morning, as Master George and
Miss Mary were playing in the garden, a strange man looked over the
hedge and called Master George by name. He held out something to him in
his hand, which Master George went out of the gate to look at. Then the
man took him up into his arms, whispered something into his ear, and
walked away with him. I was in the house at the time, and was told this
by Miss Mary. What am I to do? Please, sir, do come over at once if
you can.--Your obedient servant, Sarah Williams."

Amos, as we have seen, left home after luncheon, and did not return. He
made his way as quickly as he could to the little cottage, and found
Mrs Williams in great distress. The poor little girl also was crying
for her brother, declaring that a wicked man had come and stolen him
away. What was to be done? The cottage where the nurse and children
dwelt together was in rather a retired situation, the nearest house to
it being a farm-house, which, though only a few hundred yards distant,
was built in a hollow, so that what was going on outside the cottage
would not be visible to persons about the farm premises. Mrs Williams
was the wife of a respectable farm labourer, of better education and
more intelligence than the generality of his class. They had no
children of their own, so that Mrs Williams, who was a truly godly
woman, was glad to