r."

"What would you like, then?"

"Only to lie here, this Sunday evening, among you all."

He asked her if she would like him to read aloud? as he generally did
on Sunday evenings.

"Yes, please; and Guy will come and sit quiet on the bed beside me and
listen. That will be pleasant. Guy was always very good to his
sister--always."

"I don't know that," said Guy, in a conscience-stricken tone. "But I
mean to be when I grow a big man--that I do."

No one answered. John opened the large Book--the Book he had taught
all his children to long for and to love--and read out of it their
favourite history of Joseph and his brethren. The mother sat by him at
the fireside, rocking Maud softly on her knees. Edwin and Walter
settled themselves on the hearth-rug, with great eyes intently fixed on
their father. From behind him the candle-light fell softly down on the
motionless figure in the bed, whose hand he held, and whose face he
every now and then turned to look at--then, satisfied, continued to
read.

In the reading his voice had a fatherly, flowing calm--as Jacob's might
have had, when "the children were tender," and he gathered them all
round him under the palm-trees of Succoth--years before he cried unto
the Lord that bitter cry--(which John hurried over as he read)--"IF I
AM BEREAVED OF MY CHILDREN, I AM BEREAVED."

For an hour, nearly, we all sat thus--with the wind coming up the
valley, howling in the beech-wood, and shaking the casement as it
passed outside. Within, the only sound was the father's voice. This
ceased at last; he shut the Bible, and put it aside. The group--that
last perfect household picture--was broken up. It melted away into
things of the past, and became only a picture, for evermore.

"Now, boys--it is full time to say good-night. There, go and kiss your
sister."

"Which?" said Edwin, in his funny way. "We've got two now; and I don't
know which is the biggest baby."

"I'll thrash you if you say that again," cried Guy. "Which, indeed?
Maud is but the baby. Muriel will be always 'sister.'"

"Sister" faintly laughed, as she answered his fond kiss--Guy was often
thought to be her favourite brother.

"Now, off with you, boys; and go down-stairs quietly--mind, I say
quietly."

They obeyed--that is, as literally as boy-nature can obey such an
admonition. But an hour after I heard Guy and Edwin arguing
vociferously in the dark, on the respective merits and future treatment
of