Oh how Eustace longed to speak out, to say what Stapleton was, to remonstrate with Mr. Cleffain against Raymond's unfair statements; but some impulse or other kept him again silent; and yet there would have surely been no harm in his vindication of himself. It was just that dash of morbidity which belonged to his character, not thoroughly conquered even by school-life. Yet why call him morbid, for after all in him of whom I write was it not more really that deep and earnest longing to be like Him,-Him who bore insult and infamy without answering again ? And if it were so, can we blame Eustace?

"Stapleton is at Mr. Beaumont's," said Mr. Cleffain; "you had better go and find him out."

"I had rather not," said Eustace firmly and decidedly; "I do not like him."

"Then I am afraid you are a goose," said the old gentleman. "You can't write Latin verses, and you throw away the best chance of making a friend. You will never make your way in the world, sir."

Eustace was sorely upset by all this, and felt it was unjust, he had written four of the verses. He knew he did not deserve the blame, yet that he might have deserved some of it. He wanted to speak out and was held back. Before he left the room he did speak.

"I am very sorry, sir," said he, "that I have not pleased you. I am very, very much obliged to you, and I am sure my mother is, for sending me to school. One of my greatest wishes was to please you in my conduct there. If you are not satisfied, I wish you would be kind enough to write to one of the masters, and hear what they have to say of me. I did wish to do my duty, and I do, GOD knows."

66

There, get along with you," said the old gentleman,

putting two half-crowns on the table, from which Eustace started with an instinctive aversion, but which he felt he had better take up lest he should still more offend his kind but strange relative. "Get along with you," said Mr. Cleffain, "and give my love to your mother;" and the next minute Eustace, hat in hand, had retired through the buff curtain of the octagon room out along the low shadowy hall, into the garden, and up the lane home again.

CHAPTER XI.

THE CROSS.

EUSTACE returned to that home, where (as we have said) his mother had so carefully prepared his room for him. Mrs. Sherwood spared no pains for her one remaining object of earthly love, her only child. Every little taste of his had been studied carefully, and he appreciated all. That old arm chair in the corner, that same round table full of drawers, with its ink-stained red leather top; that little cabinet, so unlike what cabinets are now, with the brown silk fluted behind the brass wire-work; the books of Eustace's childhood, the tales he used to love, placed neatly on the shelf; the blue hyacinth glass again filled with sweet peas and mignionette; all seemed more like home in the daylight, arranged to suit her child's well-remembered tastes, and to help him to forget the comparative poverty of his home.

Eustace rushed up to his room, closed the door behind him, and throwing himself into his chair, fairly burst

into tears. His face was buried in his hands, and he did not notice the soft and gentle entrance of his mother, nor knew that she was there until she spoke.

"Eustace, my beloved boy, what trouble is it that you have held from me?"

"Oh, my mother, my own beloved mother," said he, "do not ask me, I cannot tell."

"There is nothing wrong, Eustace,-I mean nothing that you have done wrong? Then I know I may feel at rest about it."

"Oh, mother!-no, no, it is for your sake, for your sake I am unhappy."

"How for my sake, my child? What can have awakened so much grief on my account ?"

"Oh," said Eustace, "it is my own foolish fault. I had so built, and built on winning my uncle's esteem and confidence, and being able to come home one day and tell you that what you had so wished for had happened; but it was not on my own account, dearest mother, it was on yours I so longed for it. I thought it would be so happy to tell you that, after your many troubles and all your anxiety on my account, I had been the means of making you comfortable and happier about yourself and me,that's all-that's all. And how-and how-"

"But what has happened, Eustace, to destroy that hope? Not that I want it: of course it would have been delightful to me to feel that you might be one day in possession of what you would have made good use of. But why this despondency ?"

Eustace smiled through his tears as he looked up in his mother's face and said, "Oh, it is just like me; I'm so easily discouraged. You see, Mr. Cleffain spoke rather oddly to me just now, and somehow I think he has got a wrong impression of me, and I see he blames me; and I

don't know, but I think he won't leave me anything, and -and-it's hard to be misunderstood, you know, mother, when you have tried to do right. It's hard, isn't it, to be thought stupid and bad; and oh, I don't know what's the matter quite, but it's all that," said he, laughing. “I must go to work all the harder at my reading, you know, that's all, and so I shall, by God's help, be able to make my way in the world."

"He knows, Eustace, your motives and your life. He whose Love and Judgment are alone worth having. You have lived in His Sight and under His Love from your childhood, and to feel and know that is better than all the riches and honours that the world can give or take away; you know that, and you have delighted to know it, Eustace. That is the best inheritance-far."

"I know it, I know it is," said he. "Oh, I am so wrong and foolish, so little consistent, always feeling and seeing beautiful, glorious truths, but not acting on them as I should. I was worried because I was misunderstood, because Raymond has been speaking against me, and he has been speaking falsely of me-and Mr. Cleffain believes him, and that worries me. Oh, but it is all wrong. If I love JESUS as I think I do, I shall love thus to suffer and to be disappointed."

"He knows you love Him, my child, and that is enough you can look up to Him as His own earnest but weak disciple did, and say, 'LORD, Thou knowest all things, Thou knowest that I love Thee.'"

"O, mother, thank you!" said Eustace, looking suddenly up, and again smiling through his tears. "I know those words so well, and yet they never struck me before: how beautiful! Oh what a comfort you are to me! how happy life is while I have you! how wrong it is ever to complain! I will go and have a long talk with

Evelyn; that always does me good; he is so wise, and knows me so well, and always speaks so candidly to me."

So saying, he threw his arms around his mother's neck and went off in search of Evelyn.

Mrs. Sherwood stood still in her child's room as his footsteps sounded through the garden underneath. Her slender figure and pale face themselves told of a life spent under the shadow of the Cross. Though the shadow had been cold and deep, she had always lived near the Cross, and the Divine and Blessed Figure which hung upon it. She looked out at the window as Eustace's figure passed over the grass and disappeared through the little gate into the field. As she watched his figure, she thought of the long past,-her deep love for him,-her many prayers that he might be preserved pure and holy, and that he might be brought through all his troubles and anxieties into the perfect peace of the kingdom of GOD.

When Eustace reached Evelyn's home he found him in his room reading, and, as he ever was, willing immediately to attend his friend's call.

"Well, and what's the matter now ?" said Evelyn, as they set off together.

Eustace told his story.

"And," said Evelyn, "you are not regretting the loss of your chance, but that you are undeservedly ill-spoken of. Was not He, whose actual Sorrow and Patience on earth you so love to follow, evilspoken of? Was not He, Who was the LORD of Angels and the King of saints, called a devil, a wine-bibber, and a malefactor? And did not He count it all joy, that He might bear the Cross and accomplish our salvation ?”

Eustace was silent a moment. "Yes," said he ; true, Evelyn, true. How beautiful is the picture that you