Misunderstood

The comfort, then, for us and for the stricken child is, that though we may not at such times do our part, He is ever ready to do His; and it would almost seem as if He were providing for this state of feeling when he says, "Before they call, I will answer." But what could be done for the child in the terrible hour of his trouble? We know not, but God knew. The little heart was open before Him, and He knew that his sorrow would flee at morning light, and that he only wanted comfort for the present moment. So, looking pityingly down upon the lonely child, He sent him the only thing that could help him—laid gently upon his heavy eyelids the only gift that could do him any good—giving him the peace of unconsciousness till the hour of sorrow and sighing should pass away!

There one of the maids found him an hour or so later, and carried him up to bed without waking him.

CHAPTER X

Humphrey slept late the next morning, and the sun was streaming on his face when he awoke.

He sprang out of bed with an exclamation of delight at seeing such a fine day, and then started back in surprise at finding himself in a strange room.

Recollections of last night were beginning to steal over him, when the door opened, and Jane came in.

"At last! Master Humphrey. Why I thought you were never going to wake up! Master Miles has been asking for you for ever so long!"

"Then he's better, is he?" said Humphrey, eagerly.

"Better!" exclaimed Jane, in a sprightly tone; "why bless you, he's quite well."

Jane had been the one to find Humphrey in the drawing-room the night before, and had guessed by his tear-stained face how it had been.

She was not equivocating; Miles had taken a turn for the better in the night, and there was no further anxiety about him.

Humphrey's spirits rose immediately to their usual height; he dressed himself in a great hurry, and soon the two little brothers were together again.

Humphrey did not allude to his troubles of the evening before. Perhaps he had already forgotten them; or if they did recur to his memory, it was with a dull, dead sense of pain which he had no wish to call into life again.

His was a nature that was only too glad to escape from such recollections. His buoyant spirits and volatile disposition helped him to throw off sad memories, and never had he been gayer or wilder than on this morning, as he laughed and talked, and played by his brother's bedside.

It was a glorious day, Miles was nearly well, his father was coming (in obedience to Virginie's letter), and life seemed to him one flood of sunshine.

Virginie, however, still shaky from her late anxiety, and with her head ominously tied up with flannel, looked grimly on his mirth. She did not understand the boy: how should she? She was feeling very sore with him for having caused all this trouble; she was, of course, ignorant of what he had suffered, and she looked upon his noisy merriment as only another proof of his usual heartlessness.

Humphrey was not in the room when his father arrived, having gone out for a run in the garden; so Virginie had no check in pouring out her complaint.

Sir Everard was startled at the effect the short illness had had upon Miles, and listened more patiently than usual.

The delicate child looked so much like his mother as he lay in bed, with his flushed cheeks and lustrous eyes, that the vague fear about him, that almost always haunted the father, took a more definite shape.

Certainly Virginie's account of Humphrey's disobedience was not calculated to soften him towards the boy, and he really felt more angry with him than he had ever done before.

Little Miles was particularly engaging that day, so delighted to see his father, and so caressing in his ways, that Humphrey's want of heart seemed to stand out in sharper contrast. Sir Everard could not tear himself away from the little fellow for some time, and the more coaxing the child was, the more painfully came home to the father the thought of having so nearly lost him.

On descending from the nursery, Sir Everard went into the library, and ringing the bell, desired that Master Duncombe should be sent to him immediately.

"I don't suppose I shall make any impression upon him," he said to himself while he waited, "but I must try." He never expected much of Humphrey, but he was hardly prepared for the boisterous opening of the door, and the gay aspect of the boy as he bounded into the room.

Sir Everard was, as we have seen, always loth to scold or punish either of his motherless children, and when it must be done, he schooled himself to do it from a sense of duty. But the bold, and, as it seemed to him, defiant way in which the boy presented himself, fairly angered him, and it was in a tone of no forced displeasure that he exclaimed, "What do you mean, sir, by coming into the room like that?"

Now Humphrey had been busy working in his garden when his father's message had reached him, in happy forgetfulness of his recent conduct and his brother's recent danger.

In the excitement of hearing of his father's arrival, he had overlooked the probability of his displeasure; and it was with unfeigned astonishment that he heard himself thus greeted. His wondering expression only irritated his father the more.

"Don't stand there, looking as if you thought you had done nothing wrong," he exclaimed testily; "do you think you are to lead your poor little brother into danger, and make him ill, and then not to be found fault with? Don't you know that you have disobeyed me, and broken your promise? Did I not forbid you to go near that pond? I tell you I won't have it, and you shall go to school if you can't behave better at home. Do you hear me, sir? what do you mean by behaving in this way?"

Humphrey understood now. His lips quivered, and his cheek flushed at hearing himself so sternly spoken to, and he dared not attempt to answer, lest he should disgrace himself by tears.

Sir Everard's anger soon evaporated.

"You see, Humphrey," he went on more gently, "it is always the same thing. Day after day and week after week I have the same complaints of you. I should have thought you were old enough now to remember that Miles is very delicate, and that you would have taken care of him, instead of leading him into mischief. Do you know," he concluded, suddenly dropping his voice, "that we have very nearly lost your little brother?"

To Sir Everard's surprise, Humphrey burst into a passion of tears. The words brought back to him the suffering of last night with a sharp pang, and his whole frame shook with sobs.

Sir Everard was instantly melted. Like most men, the sight of tears had a magical effect upon him; and he took the child on his knee, and tried to comfort him.

"There, there," he said soothingly, as he stroked the curly head, "that will do; I must not expect old heads on young shoulders; but you must try and remember what I tell you, and not disobey me any more. And now give me a kiss, and run out, and have a game of cricket."

Humphrey lifted up his tear-stained face and gladly received the kiss of forgiveness.

A few minutes after he was playing single wicket in the field with the footman, without a trace of sorrow on his countenance or a sad thought in his heart.

But Sir Everard remained in the library, perturbed and uneasy. Miles's fragile appearance had made him nervous, and he was thinking how easily any little chill might bring on inflammation again. He was well versed in all the sudden relapses and as sudden improvements of delicate lungs. Had he not watched them hour by hour? Did he not know every step? It was an attack like this that had preceded his wife's slow fading. Daily had he watched the flush deepen and the features sharpen on a face which was so like the little face up-stairs, that, as he thought of them both, he could hardly separate the two.

Something must be done to prevent the recurrence of any risks for Miles. But what? It was clear that Humphrey was not to be trusted; and yet Sir Everard could not bear to spoil the children's fun by separating them, or by letting Virginie mount in too strict guard over them. She was a nervous woman, and too apt to think everything they did had danger in it.

"Boys must amuse themselves," he reflected; "and at Humphrey's age it is natural they should do extraordinary things. I don't want to make him a muff." Involuntarily he smiled at the idea of Humphrey being a muff. "How easily Miles might have fallen into that horrid pond! The slightest push from Humphrey, who never looks where he is going, would have sent him in. Would he ever have recovered the effects of a wholesale soaking? However," he concluded, half out loud, as he rose to return to the nursery, "the session is nearly over, and I shall be down here, and able to look after them myself. And meanwhile I shall remain on for a day or two, till Miles is quite well again."

CHAPTER XI

It was a pleasant little holiday that Sir Everard spent with his children during the days that followed; and often in after years did he look back upon it with a tender regret.

Miles's health improved steadily, and in a little while he was allowed to be carried in the afternoon to his father's dressing-room where, nestled in a huge arm-chair, with his father and Humphrey sitting by, he passed some very happy hours. Sometimes they played games, or else Sir Everard would read out loud from a book of fairy tales he had brought from London. One evening he read a story which greatly delighted both little boys. It was about a wonderful mirror, which had the power of showing to its owner what any of his absent friends might be doing at the moment he was looking into it.

"Oh, how I wish I could have such a mirror!" said Humphrey, very earnestly.

"How I wish I could!" echoed Miles.

"Do you?" said Sir Everard; "I wonder why."

Humphrey did not answer; he was gazing out of the window in deep thought.

"Who would you look for, my little man?" asked Sir Everard of Miles.

"I should look for you, dear Fardie."

"But I am here, darling."

"Not always," said Miles, laying his little hand caressingly on Sir Everard's. "When you are away in London, I should like to look in and see what you are doing."

It was by these engaging little words and ways, that Miles had wound himself so closely round his father's heart.