t is that?"

"The pleasure of rousing their souls to bear pain, and of agreeing with
God silently, when nobody knows what is in their hearts. There is a
great pleasure in the exercise of the body,--in making the heart beat,
and the limbs glow, in a run by the sea-side, or a game in the
playground; but this is nothing to the pleasure there is in exercising
one's soul in bearing pain,--in finding one's heart glow with the hope
that one is pleasing God."

"Shall I feel that pleasure?"

"Often and often, I have no doubt,--every time that you can willingly
give up your wish to be a soldier or a sailor,--or anything else that
you have set your mind upon, if you can smile to yourself, and say that
you will be content at home.--Well, I don't expect it of you yet. I dare
say it was long a bitter thing to Beethoven to see hundreds of people
in raptures with his music, when he could not hear a note of it. And
Huber----"

"But did Beethoven get to smile?"

"If he did, he was happier than all the fine music in the world could
have made him."

"I wonder--O! I wonder if I ever shall feel so."

"We will pray to God that you may. Shall we ask him now?"

Hugh clasped his hands. His mother kneeled beside the bed, and, in a
very few words, prayed that Hugh might be able to bear his misfortune
well, and that his friends might give him such help and comfort as God
should approve.

"Now, my dear, you will sleep again," she said, as she arose.

"If you will lie down too, instead of sitting by the fire. Do, mother."

She did so; and they were soon both asleep.

CHAPTER IX.

CROFTON QUIET.

The boys were all in the school-room in the grey of the morning;--no one
late. Mr. Tooke was already there. Almost every boy looked wistfully in
the grave face of the master;--almost every one but his own son. He
looked down; and it seemed natural: for his eyes were swollen with
crying. He had been crying as much as Proctor: but, then, so had Dale.

"Your school-fellow is doing well," said Mr. Tooke, in a low voice,
which, however, was heard to the farthest end of the room. "His brother
will tell you that he saw him quietly asleep; and I have just seen him
so. He deserves to do well; for he is a brave little boy. He is the
youngest of you; but I doubt whether there is a more manly heart among
you all."

There was a murmur, as if everybody wished to agree to this. That murmur
set Phil crying again.

"As to how this accident happe