NEARLY BEDTIME.

FIVE SHORT STORIES FOR
THE LITTLE ONES.

BY

H. MARY WILSON,

AUTHOR OF "CRIP," ETC.

PREFACE.

"If you please, miss, it is the children's bedtime."

Of course, when the summons does come, they all say "Good night" without any grumbling, and run away with bright faces, like my little Maggie, Dora, and Douglas.

Kenley, 1888.

NEARLY BEDTIME.

GENTLEMAN PHIL.

Phil is up betimes to-day. He had opened his eyes as he heard cook's heavy, deliberate tread on the stairs—she is stout and old, and he knows her step well—and then he knew that it must be quite early, about half-past five.

Very gaily he tumbled out of his bed, and struggled into his white summer suit.

He grew rather mixed over the buttons. There seemed so many along the top of his small knickerbockers! What could be the use of them all? One was quite enough to hold the things together, and he made up his mind to ask nurse to cut off all the others.

Not now, though! Oh no! He only peeped into her room through the half-open door, with a mischievous smile on his sweet bonny face, and looked at her still sleeping figure, until she stirred a little. Then he promptly drew back his head, and snatching up his garden shoes, ran noiselessly down the stairs.

He watched from behind the hall curtain until cook had opened the garden door, and gone to fetch her pail.

Now came his opportunity! Pulling on his shoes, he was quickly scuttling over the grass, looking very like a small white rabbit, as he disappeared among the trees and shrubs.

I don't think that my little motherless, six-year-old friend knew that he was doing anything naughty when he escaped in this way from the vigilance of his lawful guardians.

There was an honest, unselfish desire in his heart which had prompted this deeply laid plan, and he had been waiting for several days, with a patience rarely seen in a child his age, for an opportunity to carry it into effect.

As he trotted past his own strip of garden, at the further end of the Rose Walk, he was thinking to himself—

"Of course, nobody must see me do it. Gentlemen never do things because they want to be thanked. I should hate it so if she said 'thank you,' even once."

And away went the fat legs down the kitchen garden, and across the paddock, towards Farmer Greeson's corn field, where the golden grain stood helplessly in closely packed shocks.

Poor Farmer Greeson thought it very hard that Club Day should come just in the middle of his "harvesting;" that his precious wheat must stand a whole day waiting to be carried; and that another field must wait uncut while the club enjoyed itself. But, then, the old man was obliged to remind himself that the harvest was much later than usual this year. Unsettled weather and frequent storms had upset so many farming operations.

Ah! But what was a lost day to Farmer Greeson was Phil's golden opportunity.

He had listened to the servants' talk about their holiday, and though he did not quite understand what "Club Day" meant, he was quite sure that he need not be afraid of intruders upon his darling scheme at this early hour, and so he climbed the farmer's gate, and dropped with a merry "hurrah" on to the stubbly ground.

An hour later still finds Phil alone in the field, stooping over the ground and moving slowly along. He looks like a tiny old man, with his bent form and his hat pushed to the back of his head.

Phil is gleaning.

Steadily and laboriously he gathers up the scattered ears of corn.

He finds it harder work than he thought, and he stops now and then to take out his handkerchief and wipe his hot face, with a quaint imitation of the labourers he has so often watched. Then he stands with his arms akimbo, to rest before setting to work again with determined energy.

There is quite a large bundle of gleanings lying on his outspread handkerchief. He has brought his best and largest to hold his gains; and now the heap of corn almost eclipses the border of kittens and puppies, with arched backs and bristling tails, that Phil thinks "so jolly."

Hark! What a delicious peal of laughter.

The little gleaner has stopped again to straighten his back, and is watching the merry gambols of two brown baby rabbits that, quite unconscious of Phil's nearness, are playing round one of the shocks, as if they thought it had been put there solely for their amusement.

Round and round, in and out, they scamper, until Phil's laughter breaks into a shout, and he claps his hands in keen delight.

This brings the entertainment to an abrupt end.

Off fly the terrified animals—their fun and frolic turned to fear by that very human and boyish cry; and the child's merriment dies too.

He begins his labours again, saying to himself, "Well, you bunnies are awfully easily scared! It's a good thing gentlemen can be braver than that."

And so the sturdy legs trudge backwards and forwards across the field.

The sun shines warmly, and Phil's face grows hot and red. Phil begins to feel hungry too.

"If I was a big man, I think I should have a nice lot of bread and cheese! I wish I was a man. But I can be a gentleman now, father says so."

He stands with his head on one side and his hands in his pockets, looking down thoughtfully at his gleanings. He is sure that he has got enough now; but he is not quite so sure that he can carry them all at once. However, he boldly grasps the corner of his gay handkerchief lifts the bundle, and staggers under its weight across the uneven ground.

Through the little gate on the other side of the corn field, with his back turned to his own home, Phil pushes his way, and passes into the cool shadows of the lane, just as a servant-maid enters the field by the other gate.

If you wanted to escape observation, you did not enter the lane a minute too soon, little Phil.

Look at the earnest purpose in his blue eyes, and the brave determination with which he sets his teeth and struggles on with his load. A little further and he reaches an old broken gate, standing open and leading to a neglected garden.

Phil stops for a moment and listens. He hears nothing.

Yes; an old hen is clucking with motherly satisfaction over two long-legged chickens that are racing for a fat green caterpillar. That is all.

So Phil is satisfied, and plods up the narrow garden footway until he comes to a standstill at an old cottage door. He has to put his precious bundle on the ground while he stands on tiptoe and raises the latch.

"Who's there? Is any one there?" says a quavering old voice, and the child nods his curly head and smiles, but says nothing.

Pushing the door open very softly, he enters the one room of which the cottage consists. On a bed in a corner lies a very old woman; her thin hands clasped patiently on the counterpane, and her sightless eyes covered with a broad white bandage.

"Ah, daughter, I've had a long, long night; and I'll be glad of my cup of tea. But you're main early, ain't you, dearie? I don't feel the sun upon my face yet!"

How difficult it is for Phil to hold his tongue, as he crosses the cottage floor and stands for a moment by Dame Christy's bedside, looking at her with a whole world of pity in his bonny eyes.

This is by no means the first time that he has been in this humble home; but never has he come as the silent smiling visitor he is to-day.

He puts his bundle on the bed by the old woman's side, looks wistfully at the bandaged eyes, and then creeps slowly and softly across the room and runs out into the sunlight—down the lane.

With tired arms swinging from a sense of relief, with bright curls tossing, and dusty feet plodding over the ground, Phil enters the corn field, and runs—into the outstretched arms of Jane, the housemaid.

And this is the greeting she gives him—

"Well, you are a naughty boy, Master Phil! Nurse is in a rare taking, thinking you've gone and drownded yourself or got a sunstroke or something. You deserve to be kept in bed all day, you bad child! And I wish your pa was at home to whip you as well."

Poor little Phil trudges back by the side of the scolding maid, feeling sobered and crestfallen. It has come upon him like a rough awakening from a sweet sleep that what he has done may look like naughtiness in the eyes of others.

Would they understand if he told them all about it?

But, then, if he told, it would spoil it all—for "gentlemen did kind things, but never talked about them." Those were the very words father had said. Father must know. He had been a gentleman all his life.

Choking down a rebellious sob of disappointment, the child faces nurse's wrath with a brave heart. He says, "I'm very, very sorry, nursie," so humbly, when her half-angry, half-tearful scolding is over, and his winsome face looks so sweet in its unusual gravity, that her loving old heart melts at once.

She hugs and kisses "her boy" again and again; telling him "not to go and get into mischief like this, and never to give her such another scare."

Three days later Phil's father comes home.

Nurse finds an early opportunity for telling him the story of his little son's escapade, adding, however, a sequel of which Phil knows nothing. For on the previous day, Dame Christy's daughter had sent up a message to the nursery, "Might she trouble Mrs. Nurse to step downstairs for a minute?"

And on her entering the housekeeper's room, she had displayed a large handkerchief, having an artistic and warlike border of quarrelsome cats and dogs. With tears in her eyes the young woman spoke of the dear little master's gift and the hard labour it must have cost him.

"And we should never have knowed who did it, but for this, which told the tale. For he came and went so quiet, that mother she thought it must have been a dog as had got into her room, never speaking a word, and coming right away without any one knowing! His handkercher I knowed directly, 'cause he showed it to me only the other day. He's a rale little gentleman, isn't he now?"

Nurse had wisely begged Dame Christy's daughter not to mention, or let her mother speak of the gift, but to leave the child in happy ignorance that his good deed had been discovered. She instinctively felt that "her boy" who would "do good by stealth" would "blush to find it fame."

But now she tells her master all about it, dwelling with pardonable pride on the "sweet nature of the bairn."

That same evening Phil's father stands by his boy's crib and looks down at the bonny face as it lies on the pillow, while he strokes the curly crop with a loving hand.

The blue eyes are just a little bit sleepy. Nurse has tucked him up for the night, and drawn down the blind. But they are not too sleepy to shine with love and admiration as they look up into the kind face bending over him.

"So, my little son gave nurse a fright the other day?"

"Please, father, I'm very sorry."

The child's lips quiver, but the soft eyes still look trustingly upwards. "I was really trying to be a gentleman—and—and you said gentlemen didn't tell when they tried to be kind, didn't you?"

And now father quite understands the motive which has closed his child's lips—the tender sense of manly honour, which, even in its early growth, is strong enough to influence the heart of his boy.

That Phil is already "learning the luxury of doing good," and beginning a chain of those "little, nameless, unremembered acts of kindness and of love," which form "the best portion of a good man's life," fills his heart with a glow of thankfulness.

He stoops, and kissing the pleading, wistful face, says—

"Yes, Phil. Yes, dear little lad, I did say so. You need not tell me any more unless you like. I quite trust you. Remember always that you are a gentleman—or better still, try and follow in the steps of that Perfect Example of a loving and gentle Man—and you will make father very happy."

BOXER.

One by one the passengers' heads appeared at the windows. Such a variety of heads, too! Some wrapped in handkerchiefs, some with hats all awry, some wearing neither hat nor cap, and all looking ruffled and rubbed up, as if a minute before their owners had been snoring in peaceful forgetfulness that they were not in their own quiet beds at home.

This, very likely, was the case, for it was five o'clock on a warm summer morning, and the train from the North had been tearing along with its burden of drowsy passengers ever since nine o'clock the evening before.

Was it any wonder that this abrupt stoppage—here, where there was not even a platform in sight—somewhat disturbed and irritated the travellers?

"A most irregular proceeding!" cried one indignant gentleman who, in his anxiety to see what was wrong, had pulled the blue window-blind over his bald head.

"It's always the way," cried another fretfully. "Just my luck! Delaying the train, just when I particularly wished to be in town early."

"Perhaps the train is on fire! Oh, guard! guard!" screamed a frightened old lady a few doors further down. "Help me out! This is dreadful!"

But the guard, a kindly, warm-hearted Scotchman, was far too busy to attend to any one but the poor heart-broken young mother, who was clinging to him in her first paroxysm of grief and fear.

"Noo! noo!" he was saying. "Dinna be greeting sae sairly, mem! We'll all be doing our best to find the bit bairn. Jack has gone to tak' a look along the line. But the train's o'erdue, and we maun get to yonder station before we can have asseestance."

Then the news was carried the length of the Scotch express.

A little child had fallen out of the train while his mother was asleep. The lady's dog had gone too!

All the heads disappeared, with different expressions of sorrow for the poor young mother, and that was all.

Not quite, though!

One bright face reappeared. A girlish hand unfastened the carriage door, and in another moment a young lady had scrambled down to the six-foot way and, with her handbag and a bundle of wraps, was making her way to an open door, from which came the sound of bitter, hysterical weeping.

"Guard, I have come to see if I can help in any way. What are you going to do?"

"There is but one way, mem. Yonder comes Jack. He's seen nothing, I'm fearing. We must put the gude leddie down at the next station, and she maun get an engine there and go seek the puir bit bairn."

"Very well, guard. Then I will stay with this lady until we stop." And as the old man thankfully returned to his duties and the train was quickly put in motion, she sat down and put a pair of sisterly arms round the distracted stranger.

"Let us think what we will do," she said in her kind cheery voice, "and let us remember that the angels have been about your little one all this time. It may not be as bad as we think."

"We? Who are you?" asked the dazed, bewildered mother. "I don't know you."

"I am Hetty Saunders. I am going to London to spend the last days of my holiday with my brother. But I can spare the time to help you a little, you know. Let us forget that I am a stranger."

And with true womanly capableness she took the management of affairs into her own hands, drawing Mrs. Hayling on to tell her all she would about her little Willie—and something, too, of Boxer, the gentle, clever Scotch collie.

Half an hour ago they had both been with her. Where were they now?

Let us go back and look at the other side of this little story—Willie and Boxer's side.

They were both of an inquiring turn of mind. This was only their second railway journey; and it was not, therefore, very wonderful that Willie's fingers and Boxer's sharp, inquisitive nose, seemed determined to examine everything.

You can guess that it was with no small relief that Mrs. Hayling saw her little son's round blue eyes grow dim with sleep, as she tucked him up—for the sixth time at least—in the thick railway rug, and told Boxer to lie down beside him.

But it was quite a long time after Willie's mouth opened, to let out some not unmusical snores, that Mrs. Hayling's thoughts were hushed into quiet dreams.

Mothers have so many things to think about and puzzle over!

About four o'clock her little son suddenly opened his eyes, and as suddenly remembered where he was.

He was wide awake!

Boxer did not like the vigorous shake that his little master gave him. He roused himself, it is true; but when Willie climbed on to the seat and looked out of the window, he curled himself round for another nap. Why did not his little master do the same?

"Boxer, I'm 'samed of you! How lazy you are! Come and play wid me."

And the fat arms dragged the dog up again and held him in a tight embrace, from which there seemed no escaping.

"Mother is fast as'eep! We'll play widout her, dis time," and Willie fixed his eyes longingly upon the window-strap. Then he looked back again at his mother's white tired face.

He was thinking to himself, "Mother said, Willie mustn't play wid dat fing—and—and me wants to."

Poor mother! why do you not wake? See! your little child is getting nearer and nearer to that forbidden plaything.

He leant against the door and held the window-strap in one hand, while his little face grew grave and ashamed. It was not quite so nice to be disobedient as Willie thought it would be.

Mother, mother! why do you not wake? There is something wrong with the fastening of the door, and even the child's light weight has made it shift a little.

He was peeping down with eager eyes into the depths out of which the window-sash had been drawn.

"I'll send dis strap down dere, and fis' somefing up. S'all I, Boxer?"

The dog stood close beside him, wagging his bushy tail and looking up with two bright loving eyes.

And then the train gave a sudden lurch, the door flew open, and as the child fell forward with a little cry, Boxer sprang after him and seized him by his sailor-collar. Powerless to save his little master from falling, he yet dragged him sideways to the ground, and received the full force of the fall, as they rolled over and over down the long green bank.

And yet mother did not wake! No! not until that motionless bundle—the child and the dog—had been left many miles away.

"Boxer! wake up! It's time for bekfust."

Boxer did not move.

"I said I was 'samed of you. Now I'm 'sameder. You are a lazy dog!"

And then Willie's eyes opened wider, and he turned over on his bed. His bed? Why! it was soft green grass! and that was not a bed-curtain up there. It was a tree, and branches of whispering leaves.

Slowly the truth crept into the child's mind, and very slowly it drove two large tears into his blue eyes. Where was mother—dear, dear mother?

He sat up and looked round him. "Mother! mother! I'm very, very sorry!" he cried; the remembrance of his disobedience being full upon him. But his voice ended in sobs, as he buried his face in the grass again. "Oh, mother! Willie does want you so!"

Mother was coming. Her strained, anxious eyes had already discovered the little figure lying stretched upon the ground.

In another moment the pilot-engine had stopped, and she had clasped her darling in her arms—alive—unhurt—and was covering him with kisses, while thankful tears ran down her cheeks.

It was left to Hetty Saunders to stoop down and stroke Boxer's motionless figure, and in that touch to learn how the dear doggie had lost his life for his little master.

IT WAS ALL THOSE HORRID BELLOWS!

A STORY TOLD BY A LITTLE GIRL.

I don't often remember things; but that is because I've got a head like a sieve—nurse says so.

"What's in a name?" he read out of the book—and then something about a rose smelling sweet. That part doesn't matter.

If Dick had asked me "What's in a name?" I could have told him quite well. But Dick didn't ask me, and so I will tell you instead. I think there's a great deal in a name—at least, in a nickname. There are all kinds of spiteful little prickles that hurt ever so much more than others, because they stick in our feelings.

I think I must have got a whole lot of that kind of thorn in me just now, for I do feel sore.

Every one has begun to call me Matty, and I can't bear it!

Did you say Matty was rather a pretty name?

Perhaps it is, if it is the proper short for your name; I mean, if you were christened Matilda. But my name's Ginevra!

Now, do you understand that they all call me Matty just to tease me, and I hate it. I do.

I've got as far as adjectives in grammar, so I know that the long horrid word which they put before Matty sometimes is an adjective. I'm not going to write it down here—no, not for any one—because it is such a nasty, unkind word. But it begins with an M. The next letter is an E, and then comes D, and there are seven more letters, I think.

And this is all because the other day it was raining very fast, and there was nothing to do!

There never is anything to do on a wet day; I mean, nothing interesting. Dick plays with me sometimes; but he was reading a story, with dreadful fighting pictures to it, in the Boy's Own Paper, so I knew he wouldn't want to come. And Teddie had gone to sleep in the armchair.

Wasn't that a stupid thing to do?

Well! I was obliged to get something to do—wasn't I? And it wasn't my fault that Ann left the dear little drawing-room bellows behind her, when she came to make up the fire, was it?

You can do nice, funny things with bellows.

I've tried.

But Dick didn't like me to blow down his neck; and Teddie got quite cross when I sent a puff of wind into his ear and woke him up. He needn't have thrown the footstool at me, need he?

I went out of the schoolroom after that, and such a nice thought came into my head.

I would be a wind-fairy.

I would be a naughty wind-fairy first, and go and blow everything out of its place—all untidy and crooked; and then I could change, and be a good wind-fairy, and go and blow all the things straight again.

So I went into all the rooms.

It was funny!

I blew the antimacassars on to the floor, and the visiting-cards out of the china-plate.

That was in the drawing-room.

The best fun was in the nursery, where all the clean handkerchiefs and collars and cuffs were on the table. They went puff, puff, all over the floor, just like big snowflakes, and I could hardly help stepping on them.

The bedrooms were not so much fun. So I finished by going to the dining-room, as soon as Ann had gone away, after setting the tea.

Nobody will believe me when I say that I really was going to put everything tidy again! But I never got so far as being the good wind-fairy. Everything always goes just the wrong way!

First of all, the servants finished their tea sooner than they generally do, and nurse went straight back to the nursery. She might have waited—mightn't she?

And wasn't it unkind of Mrs. Rose to come and call, and to have to be shown into the drawing-room? She is our doctor's sister, and she is so stiff and white that we call her Mrs. Primrose. That's her nickname. But it never pricks her, because she never hears it.

I wonder if nurse is right when she says, "It is going against the Catechism to make nicknames for grown-up people"?

Well! I didn't know that if you blew a flame with the bellows it would make it run about everywhere. Did you?

I was only trying to make the spirit-lamp burn faster under the kettle.

I was just beginning to be the good wind-fairy then. And the silly flame ran all over the table-cloth, and there was such a flare-up!

I was frightened.

The tea-cosy was burnt. So was the table-cloth. Ann had 'stericks. I think that is what nurse called them. Mrs. Primrose came running in with mother from the drawing-room, and she fainted.

That was all!

At least, I was sent to bed, and now they call me Matty. Don't you think it is unkind of them? Ginevra is such a pretty name too!

I didn't mean to be naughty. And I do wish mother would make me understand all about it; but Teddie is ill, and, of course, she can't leave him until he's better. I shall have to wait, I suppose. But I can't be happy again until I have had a nice talk with mother. She makes everything so understand-ible.

What did nurse mean when she said, the other day, "There's one comfort; Miss Ginevra's character is still unformed"?

GULL'S "TWINSES."

"I ain't."

"My eyes! don't it smell fine? Oh! I do wish father'd come. He's allus a long time when the supper's 'ot;" and Bob, as he spoke, heaved a sigh of such prodigious depth that it might have come from his boots—if he had possessed any, poor little man!

These two small boys, Tom and Bob Gull, were six years old.

"We is only twinses," Bob would say.

Perhaps he said "only" to make us understand that they were just alike in the matter of age, but that there the likeness ended.

Bob, the merry and talkative, was the one who led Tom, the quiet and silent. Bob's twinkling, puppy-like eyes—which peeped at you through a tangled fringe of brown hair—were the exact contrast to Tom's shy blue eyes, shaded by long, fair, girlish lashes. And Bob's jolly little round figure seemed to say, "Anything, be it meagre soup or even dry bread, fattens me;" while Tom's thin little limbs gave one a thought of unconscious cravings for appetising food.

The room where they were watching for father was a third floor front in Pleasant Court, not far from Waterloo Junction. Like many such "living-rooms," it can be best described by telling you that everything in it which should be large was small, and the other way about.

For instance, the fireplace was small and the crack under the door very large. The cupboard was very roomy, but the things kept in it very much too small and scarce. The bed was wide, but the blanket and counterpane sadly narrow.

Was there nothing that was as big as it should be?

Yes, indeed! In spite of these unsatisfactory surroundings, there was as large-hearted a love to be found in the small family which these four walls sheltered from the cold outside world, as any one could wish to see.

"I don't believe father's never coming;" and Bob sighed again.

By this time the herring had found a cindery resting-place on a plate before the fire, and the twins were sitting side by side, with their bare toes on the fender and their eyes fixed upon the door, watching eagerly, like two little terriers.

But the sigh was answered by a distant sound, the plod—plod—plodding of weary feet up the two flights of uncarpeted stairs.

Then there was a grand commotion! The cushionless armchair was dragged nearer the fire; the old slippers dropped sole uppermost into the fender. And then Bob and Tom clung with a vice-like embrace each to an arm of the tall, gaunt, kindly eyed man who had opened the door.

"Father, father! the 'erring's done just lubly. I am glad you're come at last!" This from Bob.

The father's hard, rough hand rested upon his tangled crop, but his eyes were looking into Tom's upturned face.

"And Tom, eh?" he asked.

"Jolly glad," answered the child readily.

Then the three sat down to their evening meal.

Would you like to know what it consisted of?

Tea, of a watery description, but hot (Bob took care of that) and sweet—at least, father's cup, owing to Tom's kindly attentions with a grimy thumb and finger. The herring. This, of course, was the chief dish. Several tit-bits, trembling upon father's fork, find their way into the "twinses'" mouths.

Lastly, bread and dripping.

Gull had tried to teach his motherless lads "to do as mother used." So there followed a systematic cleaning and arranging of the small supply of crockery.

Tom was the first to find a seat upon father's knee as he sat by the fire; but Bob soon climbed opposite to him, and together they looked with expectant eyes into father's face.

And father rubbed his head ruefully as he said, "Eh! I've got to tell the little lads summat to-night, have I? But there's nothing new been done, as far as I knows. It's the old dull story, bairnies. The fewest tips when the weather's the bitterest."

Gull was an outside porter at Waterloo Junction; and a slight lameness, caused by rheumatism, often cost him dearly. If his step could have been quicker, it would many times have taken him in the front of the younger porters, who darted forward and seemed to get all the jobs. The sixpences came very slowly into his pocket.

To-night he felt more than usually down, as he expressed it; and when he felt Tom's little bare toes slipping for warmth under his strong brown hand, tears crept into his eyes, and had to be rubbed away with the back of his sleeve.

Bob was very quick to notice this.

"I say," he cried, "you've been and gone and got something in your eye!"

"Smuts," suggested Tom.

"Oh, let me get them out, father! Do! I'll be ever so gentle." And Bob suited the action to the word by raising himself on his knees to a level with Gull's face, and thrusting a screw of his old jacket into the corner of the suffering eye.

The operation ended in merry laughter, and the boys never knew that the smuts were really tears forced to the surface by an overburdened heart.

"Father was just real funny," that evening, as Bob whispered to Tom, when half the blanket covered them, later on—"just real funny, wasn't he?"

And Tom answered sleepily, but happily, "Yes, jolly."

Meanwhile, the tired bread-winner sat alone by the fire, with all the fun faded from his face as he wondered "how long bad times lasted with most folks?" It was not until, with the childlike simplicity that was part of his nature, he had knelt and repeated the short and perfect prayer with which his little lads had made him so familiar, that any look of comfort or hope returned to his care-lined face.

A little anxiety, but a very pressing one just now, came with the thought that the four dear little feet, which had been treading the world for the past weeks chilled and barefooted, would very probably have to curl up piteously on the cold pavement for some time longer. To get two pairs of small boots, and hope for money to pay for them by-and-by, never entered Gull's head. He had always paid his way without owing any man anything, as his father had before him.

Poor father! and poor little twins!

Yet wishes are sometimes carried quickly to their fulfilment; for a divine Lord changes them into prayers as they go upward.

The following evening, just at the hour when his boys were again straining their ears for the first sound of his footsteps, Gull was standing against one of the lamp posts outside Waterloo Station. He was peering anxiously into the face of every passenger who entered the station, every traveller who drove up from the busy streets, every business man who hurried in from the City.

Gull's lips were hard set. His eyes had a strained, anxious look; his expression was that of a warrior who was fighting a battle against heavy odds.

All day long there had been an inward struggle. Hour by hour the fight had been prolonged. Would honesty win the day? Was Gull leaning upon a strength mightier than his own?

He kept one hand buried in his pocket, always fingering there a something which was the cause of all this mental disturbance. His other hand buttoned and unbuttoned his overcoat with nervous restlessness.

And as he watched, two gentlemen came towards him under the gas lamps. They were walking arm-in-arm, and talking earnestly about shares and stocks, and all those mysterious and fascinating things, that a certain Mr. Weller said "always went up and down in the city."

When Gull saw them he started forward, and looked searchingly into the face of the elder of the two. Then he followed them closely into the station—shuffling along lamely but resolutely.

Twice he put out his hand to touch this gentleman's sleeves, but something stronger than his will seemed to hold him back.

At the platform gate the ticket collector spoke to him.

"What! are you going by the 6.5, Gull?"

"No," he answered; "but I'm bound to have a word with yon gent before he goes."

"If it's a tip you're after, you're on the wrong tack, mate. I know yon gentleman too well." But he let Gull through the gate.

Mr. Kingsley, the elder traveller, was settling himself in a first-class carriage, and leisurely enjoying the delightful employment of lighting his first cigar after a long day's work, when Gull opened the door and looked in.

"Beg pardon, sir," he began, "but did I carry a box for you this morning to the South Eastern, sir?"

Mr. Kingsley looked him well over before he answered, with a twinkle of amusement in his little bright eyes—

"What if you did, man? Wasn't the sixpence heavy enough?"

Gull knew now that he had found the man he wanted. He drew his hand from his pocket and held a bright half-sovereign towards Mr. Kingsley.

"That's what you give me, in mistake, sir," he said huskily, adding, "I'm glad I remembered who 'twas as give it to me."

Again Mr. Kingsley looked the porter well over. Then he turned his eyes to the further end of the railway carriage, and was relieved to see that his fellow-passenger was, to all appearance, deeply interested in his evening paper. I say, to all appearance, for the truth is that he was listening to all that passed; and it is from him that I heard this story, which is no fiction.

Still, though satisfied that he was unnoticed, Mr. Kingsley did not take the proffered coin. After a moment's pause he said—

"How did you find out that I was coming back this way to-night?"

"I seemed to know as you was a 'season,' sir," Gull answered, "and I watched for you."

"Well, well, man! and now, as to that half-sovereign. I expect it will be of more use to you than to me—eh? Keep it, man; keep it."

Gull's pale cheeks flushed.

He stammered out, "You'd—you'd best take it back, sir." It seemed to him as if this was some new form of that terrible temptation which had been assailing him all that long day; and he thrust the half-sovereign forward again.

"No, no! Keep it, man!" repeated Mr. Kingsley. "I'm not going to say a word about your honesty. You are just as much a man as I am; and a true man is always honest. But keep it, because the Christmas bells will ring to-night."

"Thank you, sir."

Written, the words appear cold; but said, as Gull said them, they carried an amount of warmth and gratitude which quite satisfied Mr. Kingsley without the half-involuntary speech that followed, "So there will be boots for the little lads, after all!"

"Bless the man! How jolly you look! Did you get your tanner, then?"

This was the ticket collector's greeting as Gull passed.

"Yon gent's a trump, and no mistake!" answered the other as he hurried along, eager for the delight which such a story would bring to the little ears now listening for his coming in that third floor front in Pleasant Court.

I wonder what it was that moved Mr. Kingsley to a wider generosity that evening than was at all usual in the money-wise, business man? Could it have been that he was led to it partly by the fact—though he was quite unconscious of it—that there was something similar in the home relations of these two men?

For Mr. Kingsley was also a widower; and it was his little only daughter who was pressing her tiny nose against the window-pane, and trying to guess how many people would go by the gate before daddy set it swinging and came up the drive.

Patsy's greeting was quite as loving and vigorous as the one the "twinses" gave their father every day. The slippers warming at the fire were elegant braided ones, bound round with velvet. Well! what of that? It was the love that thought of putting them there which made them so comfortable; and so, in that respect, Gull's were quite as good to wear as Mr. Kingsley's.

When the two were comfortably settled, Patsy began to rummage in all daddy's pockets.

"It's Christmas present night!" she cried. "Where's my little yellow money?"

Mr. Kingsley felt in his pockets with a musing air.

"I don't know what my little maid will say," he said at last, producing four half-crowns; "but I have no nice half-sovereign for her to-night—only these big ugly white things. It is true they will buy quite as many toys. And I might have had 'the yellow money,' only now, I expect, it is turned into shoeleather."

At the opening of this speech Patsy's face had borne an expression of disgust and disappointment; but before it was finished, it changed to one of undisguised interest.

"Oh! I'm sure you've been in a fairy tale to-day, daddy! You know I just love fairy stories. Do begin at once, before nurse comes. Tell me about it quickly—do, please."

And so, out of the materials that Gull had given him, Mr. Kingsley pleased his little daughter by weaving a wonderful modern fairy story. He had rather a talent that way, and had learnt by experience the kind of stories that the little ones like best. This time his narrative was "truer" than he knew; and Patsy acknowledged, when it was done, that it was "the nicest and beautifullest that she had heard for a long time."

And while Patsy's father was telling the story in his way, another version of it was being repeated again and again to the twins, high up in that old London house.

They were never tired of hearing it, never tired of asking questions; and all the time the feeling of gratitude in their father's heart—which had been like a little seed, planted there by the kind words and gift of Mr. Kingsley—grew and grew until he longed to do something. He had only as yet said, "Thank you, sir;" but now he longed to show his gratitude in a more fitting way. So thought the "twinses," too, for Bob said presently—

"Father, shouldn't I just like to do something nice for that gentleman! I wonder whether you're like to see him again?"

"In course, lad. I shall often see him pass, I'll never forget him; but it's not so likely as he'll remember me. Got summat better to do, I reckon. Yes; he'll come most days, seeing as he's a 'season.' But, there—you're right! I don't feel as if I shall be able to rest until I've done 'summat nice for him,' as you says, if it's only to carry his bag for nothing. But summat bigger nor that would ease me more. What a rale gent he is, to be sure!"

There was no disguising the tears that stood in Gull's eyes now; and strange to say, he did not try to hide from his "little lads" that they were there.

He made the boys put their feet, now so stoutly booted, in a row upon the fender. How the brass tips shone in the firelight! And there was such a jolly noise when the heels knocked against the floor! Bob made the grand discovery that he could dance a hornpipe. And his sturdy feet careered over the floor, clattering, tapping, and jumping, until the quiet Tom was roused into clapping and "hurrahing" with delight.

His "act of irregular charity," as he called it, quickly faded from Mr. Kingsley's mind—so quickly, too, that when one of the outside porters occasionally helped him more readily than usual, or seemed less eager for the accustomed "tip," he never thought that it might have any connection with that Christmas Eve adventure. He was short-sighted, too, and not very quick to recognize faces. He did not know that as he passed out of the station every morning, Gull's eyes followed him with a pleasant remembering look, that Gull's hand was always ready to throw back the doors of the hansom if the day was wet and he drove, and that Gull's feet were swift to carry their owner away before the accustomed "coppers" could be offered.

The first question that always greeted Gull when he got home to his boys in the evening was, from Bob—

"Did you see our gentleman to-day, father?" echoed by Tom's eager—

"Did you, father?"

A year had nearly passed away. Christmas was coming again, this time dressed in a mantle of thick, choking fog and biting frost. The days seemed to be turned into night. People and things looked queerly distorted and unnaturally large. The street lamps tried to pierce the gloom all day with foolish, blinking eyes; and every one took his full measure of grumbling.

One evening Mr. Kingsley hurried up the steps to Waterloo Junction with a feeling of relief that the unknown perils of the gloomy streets were safely past. He pushed his way through a little group of idlers near one of the doors, and was turning towards the booking-office, when he was startled by a violent commotion close behind him. He turned to find two men—both tall, but one powerful and thick-set, the other meagre and ill-clad—engaged in a hand-to-hand struggle.

His first impulse was to continue his way and leave them to fight it out.

"It is some wretched, drunken tramp," he said to himself. But a second look showed him that there was too much desperate method on the part of both for this to be the case; and he was looking round for a policeman to interpose the "stern arm of the law," when the struggle was ended as abruptly as it had begun.

The stronger man of the two suddenly flung his antagonist from him with an angry oath, and then disappeared in the fog. He left the other lying almost at Mr. Kingsley's feet—flung there upon his back, with one hand hidden beneath him. He lay motionless as death, silenced by the force with which his head had struck the ground. His white face and closed eyes sent a quick fear to Mr. Kingsley's kindly heart as he bent over him, and he turned to the two porters who hurried up, to say—

"The man's terribly hurt, I'm afraid. There was a quarrel, and he was thrown down."

While one of the men answered him the other stooped down to look at the prostrate figure, and then started to his feet again, crying—

"Mate—it's Gull! It's Gull, I tell you! What does it mean?"

With the help of the policeman, who appeared at this moment, and watched by the usual curious crowd of onlookers, they bathed Gull's face with cold water, forced brandy between his lips, and chafed his cold hands. Then it was that they discovered, tightly clasped in the hand upon which he had been lying, a folded leather case. The policeman unbent the convulsive fingers, and examined this with careful eyes.

"However did Gull get hold of this, I wonder?" was his exclamation.

Mr. Kingsley looked at it with a puzzled expression. It had a strange resemblance to his own pocket-book! Thrusting his hand hurriedly into his various pockets proved to him, without a doubt, that his it was indeed. And a few words were sufficient to convince the policeman of his right to claim it.

But here a sudden movement from Gull turned all eyes towards him once more.

He raised himself to a sitting position, and with one hand to his poor dazed head, gazed with dim, half-unconscious eyes at the other held before him—wide open and empty!

As he gazed, a bitter cry escaped his lips.

"Then the brute has made off with it, after all!"

This, you see, was the way in which Gull "eased himself," as he expressed it, and satisfied the demands that gratitude made upon his honest heart.

I have very little more to tell you, and that you could almost guess for yourself.

Gull spent a few quiet days on his bed, attended devotedly by his little lads, who were much over-awed at father's "bein' took bad," and filled with wide-eyed wonder when "our gentleman" climbed the old staircase more than once, to see how father was, and to provide for him some new comfort.

Once again, two versions of a true story were told in two separate homes. It was the version that the "twinses" heard which was the shortest in the telling.

"Tell us all about it, father," said Bob, when Gull was "rested" enough to talk to his boys.

"Nay, lad, there ain't much to tell. I just collared the thief as he was making off with Mr. Kingsley's pocket-book, and he didn't like it somehow, and threw me down. But that's all about it."

"Oh! but you got the pocket-book from him first, you know, father."

"Ay! I did that," Gull answered, with a smile; and there the telling of the story ended. I don't know when the acting of it will be finished, for there was a difference in the lives of Gull and his "twinses" from that day forward—"all along of Mr. Kingsley's kindness," as they would tell you; but "because I have found an honest man," as Mr. Kingsley himself would say to little Patsy.

THE   B. D. S.

They all knew that mother had a clear judgment; but it was just her far-seeing power that made them tremble. She might see breakers ahead which they knew nothing about.

And perhaps mother did see a few objections to this new plan. However that may be, as the little ones presented their petition, she smiled.

This was, indeed, a good sign, and more than that, the smile was followed by a ready consent as the plan was unfolded.

The Bill was passed. Hurrah!

The B. D. Society was allowed; and mother had actually agreed to be patroness and prize-giver.

"What a dear, jolly mother she is!"

"She's a duck, and no mistake!"

Rather unbusinesslike language, but very expressive!

Well, but what did it mean, this B. D. S.?

It was only a Bedroom Decorating Society. But it seemed a very beautiful idea to the four curly headed little girls who sat squeezed up together in the large nursery armchair.

Pattie, Mollie, Kitty, and Norah. Four little Irish maidens, with this lovely plan to talk over and make perfect, while a snowstorm kept them indoors to-day.

Pattie. "Don't let's tell each other how we'll do our rooms until afterwards."

Norah. "You'll never keep your plans to yourself. You never could keep anything in."

Mollie (up in arms for her sister). "Don't be nasty, Norah, or something bad will happen to you!"

Norah (looking a little ashamed of herself and wisely changing the subject). "Let's begin now. We'll take all the things out of our rooms first, and then put them back in new places—shall us?"

As you may guess, the B. D. S. was intended to promote a general taste for artistic style in the children's bedrooms, or as Kitty expressed it, simply and to the point, "It is to make us put our things illigantly."

Mother determined to let this new idea have a fair trial; though she could not help feeling a little nervous as she heard the scrimmaging of the furniture, and thought of possible breakages.

She sat at her needlework, and listened to the distant sounds which reached her faintly from the rooms above. Then she began to wonder whether the excitement and interest would last out the fortnight, at the end of which she had been asked to present a prize.

Suddenly her motherly heart gave a terrible throb.

There was a thud—thud—thud, and that horrid bumping sound, as something soft tumbled over and over down the stairs.

With a white face she rushed out of the dining-room, to see little Norah and a large bolster roll on to the floor at her feet!

A breathless scream escaped from the terrified child.

The three other curly heads were peeping through the banisters, and three pairs of Irish blue eyes were looking horribly scared and unhappy.

But mother did not see them.

She picked up the screaming Norah, and carried her into the dining-room, while nurse came running from the kitchen and her ironing.

All the time that the sobbing little victim of the B. D. S. was being soothed into calmness, and the big swelling wheal on her forehead bathed and tended, Pattie, Mollie, and Kitty—upstairs—looked at one another in frightened silence. Then Mollie said sadly—

"I knew something would happen to Norah. It always does if she says nasty things."

"Rubbish, Mollie! That's nonsense! She fell down because her bolster was so big, and she couldn't see where the stairs came!" cried Pattie.

"I'm going to see where she's hurted herself," announced little Kitty; and she trudged off, leaving Pattie and Mollie to sort the heap of odds and ends that lay on the landing.

They went about it in doleful silence at first.

Then Mollie said, "This is my counterpane—isn't it, Pattie?"

"No; that's Norah's. Don't you see the corner all crumpled up which she holds in her hand when she goes to sleep?"

"Oh dear! oh dear! I don't think, after all, that it's easy having a B. D. S. It seemed just to spoil it all when Norah went thumping down—down, like a big ball."

Pattie gave a little sigh, too, and was putting down the chair she was carrying that she might rest her arms and have room for another deeper sigh, when mother's voice was heard calling—

"Mollie! Pattie! I want you down here!"

Off they ran, feeling down in their little hearts that mother must know how to put things happy again.

First of all they looked with interested and pitying eyes at Norah, whose head had become an odd shape, and whose face was white and patchy. Then they stood side by side with Kitty, watching mother's face, and waiting.

"The B. D. S. has had a bad beginning, dears," she said. "I don't think it was a good plan to pull everything out of your rooms to start with. But never mind that now."

As mother spoke she kept one hand behind her chair, and she smiled.

She was sorry for her little girls.

"I am going to propose," she went on, "that you should alter your society a little bit. The letters will be the same. It will still be the B. D. S.; but the work will be different and easier."

The little faces all brightened as she continued—

"I like my little girls to be tidy and neat in their rooms; but I think mother knows best how the furniture should stand, and where the things look nicest. So I suggest that we call our society the Bedroom Dusting Society. I will give you each a little cloth, and you shall dust your rooms every morning after nurse has made the beds. And once a week I will award a prize."

Then mother drew her hand forward and held before their eyes a Japanese fan, with a long handle, to which was tied a dainty bow of blue ribbon.

"This," she said, "shall be given next Saturday to the tidiest of the four members of your society. Now, what do you think of my plan?"

"It's just splendid, mother darling!" was the unanimous cry of the listeners; and a tangle of soft loving arms nearly throttled her in a sudden embrace.

"And you know," came in a plaintive voice from Norah, "if you always give us a pretty thing like that for a prize, it will be the Bedroom Decorating Society, too!"

THE END.

PRINTED BY WILLIAM CLOWES AND SONS, LIMITED, LONDON AND BECCLES.

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