over the pillow bore witness. When a knock came on the bedroom door,
she started with pain, but lay down again and cried--"Come in!"

The door opened, but no one came in; and outside the voices of the
little boy and his nurse were audible.

"I want to show her my new coat."

"You can't, Master Jack. Your Aunt's got a dreadful headache, and
can't be disturbed."

No peevish complaints from Jack: only a deep sigh.

"I'm very sorry about her headache; and I'm very very sorry about my
coat. For I am going out, and it will never be so new again."

His aunt spoke feebly.

"Nurse, I must see his coat. Let him come in."

Enter Jack.

It was his first manly suit, and he was trying hard for a manly soul
beneath it, as a brave boy should. He came in very gently, but with
conscious pride glowing in his rosy cheeks and out of his shining
eyes. His cheeks were very red, for a step in life is a warming thing,
and so is a cloth suit when you've been used to frocks.

It was a bottle-green coat, with large mother-o'-pearl buttons and
three coachman's capes; and there were leggings to match. The beaver
hat, too, was new, and becomingly cocked, as he stood by his Aunt's
bedside and smiled.

"What a fine coat, Jack!"

"Made by a tailor, Auntie Julie. Real pockets!"

"You don't say so!"

He nodded.

"Leggings too!" and he stuck up one leg at a sudden right angle on to
the bed; a rash proceeding, but the boy has a straight little figure,
and with a hop or two he kept his balance.

"My dear Jack, they are grand. How warm they must keep your legs!"

He shook his beaver hat.

"No. They only tickles. That's what they do."

There was a pause. His Aunt remembered the old peevish ways. She did
not want to encourage him to discard his winter leggings, and was
doubtful what to say. But in a moment more his eyes shone, and his
face took that effulgent expression which some children have when they
are resolved upon being good.

"--_and as I can't shake off the tickle, I have to bear it_," added
the little gentleman.

I call him the little gentleman advisedly. There is no stronger sign
of high breeding in young people, than a cheerful endurance of the
rubs of life. A temper that fits one's fate, a spirit that rises with
the occasion. It is this kind of courage which the Gentlemen of
England have shown from time immemorial, through peace and war, by
land and sea, in every country and climate of the habitable globe.
Jack is a ch