I'll
look out for some other little chap who requires a refuge for the
destitute."

"Thank you, for Eden's sake," said Walter; "I'm sure you'll soon begin
to like him, if he gets at home with you."

"But that's the worst of it," continued Power; "so few ever do get at
home with me. I suppose my manner's awkward--or something; but I'd give
anything to make fellows friendly in five minutes as you do. How do you
manage it?"

"I really don't know; I never think about my own manner or anything
else. I suppose if one feels the least interest in any fellow, that he
will probably feel some interest in me; and so, somehow, I'm on the best
terms with all I care to know."

"Well, Ken and I had a long talk after you left us, to cross the Devil's
Way; and I hope that the memory of that may make us three friends firm
and fast, tender and true, as long as we live. We were in a horrible
fright about you, and I suppose that, joined to our own danger, gave a
solemn cast to our conversation; but we agreed that if we three, as
friends, were united in the silent resolution to help others, and
especially new fellows and young, as much as ever we can, we might do a
great deal. Tell me, Walter, didn't you find it a very hard thing when
you first came, to keep right among All sorts of temptations?"

"Yes, I did, Power, very hard; and I confess, too, that I sometimes
wondered that not one boy, though there are, as I see now, lots of
thoroughly good and right fellows here, ever said one word, or did one
thing to help me."

"It's all wrong, all wrong," said Power; "but it was you first who made
me see it. Walter, I shall pray to-night that God, Who has kept us
safe, may teach and help us here to live less for ourselves. Who knows
what we might not do for the school?"

They both sat for a short time in thoughtful silence. Boys do not often
talk openly together about prayer or religion, though perhaps they do so
even more than men do in common life. It is right and well that it
should be so; it would be unnatural and certainly harmful were it
otherwise. And these boys would probably never have talked to each
other thus, if a common danger had not broken down completely the
barriers of conventional reserve. Never again from this day did they
allude to this sacred resolution; but they acted up to it, or strove to
do so, not indeed unwaveringly, yet with manful courage, in the strength
of that pure, strong, beautiful unity of heart