And Angel would say, in a rather sleepy voice,

'But, Betty dear, what about washing the china?'

And Betty would start off at once on a new set of arrangements to fit in everything.

Or she would burst into the kitchen with another idea, while Angelica was ordering the dinner.

'Angel dear, don't you think it would be very healthy for Godfrey to live entirely on vegetables? In that paper Cousin Crayshaw brought down it said it was such a capital thing for children. He might begin on potatoes to-day, and to-morrow he might have vegetable marrow, and we might draw up a list for every day in the week.'

It was all rather distracting to Angel, who felt quite sure that Betty was much cleverer than she was, and yet dreaded trying any experiment with Godfrey which she did not quite understand. It was Betty's idea that Godfrey should spend Sunday afternoon in learning his Catechism; all children learnt their Catechism on a Sunday, she said, and the sooner Godfrey began the better. Besides, once a month the children were catechized in church, and she didn't want him to be behind Nancy Rogers and Jerry Ware, and all the village boys and girls. So he said the answers after her and she explained them, which she certainly did very brightly and very well, and on week-days Angel taught him the earlier ones, in her gentle, plodding way, till he knew them by heart. He had done what his Aunt Betty required of him by the time Angel had taken two more turns, and was having his reward in the story which he called godpapa and the acorn. It was his favourite of all Betty's tales, and it was the sort she liked best to tell, with a little bit of fact and a great deal of imagining. Certainly there was not very much fact to begin upon, only an old tradition of one of William the Conqueror's barons, who had long ago owned land at Oakfield and had planted the tree which gave the place its name. What chiefly interested Godfrey was that the baron of the oak had borne the same Christian name as himself, though nobody knew his surname.

'Was that why they called me that?' he asked eagerly, the first time Betty told him the story.

Betty could not say for certain, but she and Angel had fancied that Godfrey's father, who had been at Oakfield often when he was a little boy, might have been thinking of his English home when he chose the name, for he had no relation called Godfrey. At any rate Betty and her nephew decided that it must have been so, and when Godfrey came to godparents in the Catechism and did not know who his own had been, he christened the great Norman baron 'godpapa,' and loved to sit at Betty's feet with his chin on her knee, looking up with his wide grey eyes into hers, while she told how well the gallant Sir Godfrey had fought at Hastings, and how the king had given him the wide stretch of fair pasture and forest as a reward for his valour, and how perhaps the acorn was the very first thing he planted, and how his wife liked to come out on a summer evening and mark how it grew into a young tree, and how his grandchildren and great-grandchildren played under its shadow.

'And did he sit under it when it was a big tree?' asked Godfrey in his earnest way.

'Well, no, I don't think he could have himself, because, you see, by that time he must have been dead and buried in the church—very likely close by Miss Jane, with his figure all in armour on the top, and a little dog at his feet.'

'No, but I would rather have him sitting under the oak,' persisted Godfrey; 'make it a different end, Auntie Betty,' and as Angelica came round the end of the yew hedge, he ran to meet her, exclaiming,

'Auntie Angel, make Auntie Betty make godpapa Godfrey sit under his own tree.'

Angel sat down and drew him to her side, while Betty repeated:

'I can't, Godfrey, because it wouldn't be real. I told you he couldn't be alive when it was a big tree, unless he got as old as the people at the beginning of the Bible.'

'You see, Godfrey dear,' began Angel in her quiet way, 'it is often like that with the good things people do; they don't get all the good of them themselves, but somebody else, perhaps ever so long after, is the happier for what they have done. I think it is rather nice to think of our dear old oak being green and shady year after year, and reminding us that the man who planted it so long ago helped to make Oakfield a little prettier. You know everything that God puts into the world, animals and plants, and even little flowers and insects, they are all useful somehow, though we don't always see how, and so men and women, who can think and plan and work, ought to do something besides just enjoying themselves, they ought to leave some mark of their having been here.'

Godfrey's eyes drank in every word.

'Are you doing something, Aunt Angel?' he asked gravely.

Angel flushed her pretty pink.

'I can't do very much, Godfrey,' she said; 'I should like to make people a little happier, and then, you know, I want you to do a great deal, and your Aunt Betty and I are trying to teach you what we can to help you: that is like Sir Godfrey planting the oak tree, and hoping that one day it would be beautiful for every one to see.'

Godfrey leaned hard with both elbows on her knee.

'What useful things shall I do?' he asked.



'I don't know; we shall see by-and-bye. I should try and make every one very happy now, if I were you, and learn all I could, so that when you are a man, and can help more people, you may have the power and the wisdom you want.'

'Only think if you were a great scholar,' put in Betty, 'and wrote a book—no, a lot of books, and people had them in their libraries, all bound the same, and with "By Godfrey Wyndham" on the back. Or,' as Godfrey looked only doubtfully pleased, 'if you were a great statesman and made speeches, or suppose you were a soldier and beat the French.'

'Would that be useful?' asked Godfrey of Angel.

'Yes, certainly, very useful if the French were coming to conquer England.'

'Pete is useful, isn't he?' said Godfrey; 'Penny says he's the usefullest man about the place. Perhaps I might be a useful gardener, Auntie Betty; I should like that, and I could plant lots of things then to come up for other people; or couldn't I be a useful miller like Ware? because people must have bread, and I should like a mill.'

'But why can't you be a statesman or a general?' said Betty, rather taken aback.

'I would rather be a gardener like Pete,' persisted Godfrey; 'why can't I? Gardeners are useful.'

'I think,' said Angel, 'because it isn't the state of life into which it has pleased God to call you, Godfrey dear, like the Catechism you were learning. We can't choose always just what we should like to be, we have to do our best just where we are put.'

'It's getting cold,' said Betty, springing up; 'shall we go down to the Place and see if the cow that was ill is any better? There's time before supper.' So the aunts and the nephew strolled down the road together, forgetting, for the present, the subject of Godfrey's future profession. And none of them guessed how much that Sunday afternoon call would do towards deciding it. When they reached the gate of Oakfield Place, Nancy came running to meet them, brimful of news as usual.

'Oh, please, Miss Angelica, oh, please, Miss Elizabeth,' she began—for though Godfrey wouldn't use his aunts' long names himself, Peter always strictly obeyed Betty's wishes and made Nancy do the same—'oh, please, Uncle Kiah's come. He came last night, and the Frenchmen have got his leg and two of his fingers, and the captain is going to get him some money from the King and he's to live here always; and he'd have been at church this morning only he isn't just right used to his new leg, and he was afraid he'd tumble down before all the folks in church and give the parson a start, so he thought he'd wait till next Sunday.'

'Do you mean your sailor uncle, Nancy?' asked Betty eagerly as Nancy paused for breath.

'Yes, miss, Uncle Hezekiah Parker; please come in, miss, he tells such rare stories, miss.'

'But, Nancy, perhaps your mother won't want us to-day, just now when your uncle's come home,' said Angel.

'Oh, yes, miss, she will, please Miss Angel—Miss Angelica—and so will Uncle Kiah too. He's here, miss,' and Nancy ushered her visitors to the back of the house, where the kitchen and store-room windows looked out. There was quite a Sunday air about the place; William Rogers and Pete, in their best clothes, were looking at the cows in the orchard, while Patty was gathering some cabbages to feed them. Martha was moving about in the kitchen and singing a quiet, sleepy psalm tune to herself, and on the sunny bench under the window sat a brisk-looking, white-haired old man with a wooden leg, beating time to the psalm tune with the stick in his hand. When he caught sight of the young ladies he jumped up directly and made quite a grand bow, though Angel almost caught hold of him, she was so afraid he would tumble over.

'How do you do, Hezekiah?' she said; 'we're so glad to see you. We've been so sorry to hear about your—about your—misfortunes.'

'None at all, missy, none at all worth speaking of,' said the old sailor cheerily, balancing himself with his stick; 'the Frenchies have got my old leg, and much good may it do 'em. The old neighbours have been in, making a deal o' fuss over me, but I tells 'em to keep their pity for them that wants it more, and I've one less leg for the rheumaticks to get hold of,' and the old sailor laughed at his own joke like a storm of wind in the rigging.

'And now you've come to settle down at Oakfield?' said Angelica.

'Ay, ay, miss, thanks to the captain, the best officer that ever trod quarter-deck, bless his heart. A hot time he'll be giving the "froggies," I'll warrant him, so he and the old Mermaid be getting any work to do.'

'I'm afraid you'll find it rather dull here after where you've been,' said Betty.

'Not I, missy,' was the cheery answer; 'places is much as you makes 'em all the world over, and it's fair and right the old hulk should put into port and see the young craft putting out. I'll find enough to keep me from rusting, never you fear.'

'My nephew, Master Godfrey, likes stories better than anything,' said Angel, putting the little boy forward; 'will you tell him about some of the things you have seen, while I talk to Martha?'

Godfrey had been watching the sailor with earnest eyes all the time he talked, and now he came up readily and sat down on the bench beside him; Betty, who was devoted to animals, ran down to ask after the cows and coax them with cabbages, and Angelica went to Martha in the kitchen. A woman in the village was ill, and she wanted to consult Martha about what to take to her. It took a good time to talk it over, and when she came out again the twilight was deepening. Hezekiah still sat on the bench outside, and Betty was sitting by him, while Pete, Patty, Nancy, and their father stood silently listening. As for Godfrey he sat as if he had not moved since she left him, and his eyes never left the sailor's face, except to glance at what the old man was drawing on the ground with his stick, the line of the ships in a great sea-fight. Long afterwards Angel remembered it all, as one goes back to scenes which seemed of no importance at the time but were really the beginning of great events—the autumn evening, with the damp heavy scent on the air, the white mist clinging to the low ground, while above the sky cleared for a starry night, the late monthly roses on the house, the old sailor and his little group of listeners.

'Godfrey,' she said softly, 'it is time to go home.'

The little boy started and drew a long breath.

'Bless him, he ain't here,' chuckled old Kiah; 'he's off the Spanish coast, missy, along o' Lord Nelson and our captain. You come again, young master, and I'll tell you the rest.' And then he would hobble himself to the gate to let them out. 'Never tell me,' he said, as Pete hurried to do it instead and Patty to give him her arm, 'I'm not quite useless yet, no more I am; I told the captain he'd find me doing a hand's turn when he came home. I've got one leg and a hand and a half the Frenchies left me, and I'll make something of them if I'm not much mistaken.'

All the way home Betty talked eagerly about the old sailor, where he had been, what he had seen, the great men he had known. Godfrey said not a word and asked no questions, and yet Angel was sure he thought of nothing else all the evening. But he told none of his thoughts until just before he was going to say his prayers. Then he said suddenly:

'Aunt Angel, that man is a very useful man; he must have been the usefullest man that could be when his leg was on.'

Then, leaning on her lap as he did when he was excited, he went on:

'When you want something, you ask God for it, don't you, Aunt Angel?'

'We ask that we may have it if God pleases,' said Angel reverently.

'Yes,' said Godfrey, 'and I am going to ask, if it pleases Him, to call me into the state of being a useful sailor.'



CHAPTER V

THE WRONG END

'You won't say, what is it I want? but, what is it I've got to do? What have I got to do or to bear, and how can I do it or bear it best? That's the only safe point to make for, my lad; make for it and leave the rest.'—J. H. EWING.

For the next few days Betty and her nephew spent most of their spare time on Hezekiah's bench under the kitchen window at the Place. Betty talked of nothing but naval battles, but Godfrey still said very little, and after that Sunday night never spoke again of being a sailor. Angel wondered, for it was not like Godfrey, who generally had plenty to say; but she noticed sometimes, when Betty was telling Kiah Parker's stories, that Godfrey's face took that strange resolute set that surprised her so much when he first came. It gave her new ideas about her little nephew, and showed her that, under all his liveliness and fancy, there was a strong will which it would be very hard to alter if once he made up his mind. It frightened her a little, for she did not feel half wise enough to lead him to make up his mind the right way. She did not talk to Betty about it; indeed at present Betty's head seemed too full of ships to hold anything else. Hezekiah had made Godfrey a beautiful little model vessel, carpentering quite wonderfully with his remaining fingers, and had taught him the names of the ropes, which the boy learnt directly. That was all very well, but when it came to his saying them over to Betty when he ought to have been doing his reading lesson, and drawing little ships on the slate when he should have been at his sums, Angel began to be rather alarmed, and ventured to speak gently to her sister about Godfrey's neglecting his lessons. Betty was always ready enough to own herself in the wrong; she was overwhelmed with penitence before Angel had half finished her gentle remonstrance.

'I declare I want looking after twenty times more than Godfrey does,' she exclaimed, with the quick tears in her bright eyes. 'I won't go near Kiah for a week, and no more shall he.'

'Oh no, you mustn't do that!' exclaimed Angelica, in dismay; 'that wouldn't be fair to poor Kiah or Godfrey either. I like you to go there. I think it is a good thing; only I don't think it ought to interfere with other things that have to be done.'

Betty stopped her as usual with a vehement hug.

'You are, next to Martha, the wisest person in the world, Angel. It's Godfrey's history lesson this morning, and I'll take care we both do it properly.'

But Betty had to find out that it is easier to make resolutions for ourselves than to impress them upon other people. Godfrey was by no means inclined for his history lesson that morning. Betty had taken a great deal of trouble to understand about the Norman Conquest herself, and to make it easy for Godfrey, but he would not take any interest to-day in the oppression of the poor Saxons, or the curfew bell, or Domesday Book.

'I want to go back to them coming over,' he persisted. 'What was his flag-ship like—the admiral's I mean?'

'If you mean William the Conqueror's I don't know, and he wasn't an admiral, he was a general. Godfrey, don't look out of the window—what are you thinking about?'

'I'm thinking that if the Channel Fleet had watched the harbours properly those French ships wouldn't ever have got out of port.'

'Godfrey, you must attend to what I am telling you. Now then, what was the curfew?'

'A bird with a long beak that squeals; Kiah says——'

Betty rose up majestically.

'Godfrey, if you think it is funny to pretend that you think I said curlew you are very much mistaken. I have a very great many things to do, more things than a little boy like you can count, and I can't spend all the morning with you. So I am going to write on this slate: "The curfew bell was rung at eight o'clock every night as a sign that people were to put their lights out and go to bed," and you are to go on copying it and copying it till the slate is quite full.'

Godfrey said not a word, only watched while Betty wrote the words in a bold round hand, and ruled double lines with a decided sweep of her slate pencil, and then walked out of the room with her most 'maiden aunt' expression. But when she was gone I am sorry to say that he got on a chair, reached down his wooden ship from its high shelf, climbed out of the window into the garden, and went out through a gate in the fence and across the fields. He was not back when Betty and Angel came in together, to find the blank slate and Godfrey's high chair pushed up to the table, but no one in the room. They called his name about the garden and paddock, and just as Betty was beginning to get into a panic and to declare it was all her fault, he appeared, coming back slowly across the field towards the wicket gate. The two aunts met him, Angel looking grieved and Betty indignant.

'Godfrey, this is very naughty,' began Angel, gravely.

'I don't see that you can have any heart at all,' said Betty, 'because it's quite plain you want to break both ours. Perhaps when we are both in our graves, with stones over us like Miss Jane's—only we couldn't afford near such large ones—you'll feel something pricking you.'

'I know I shall,' said her nephew promptly, 'because then Penny would pin my collar, and she always sticks the point of the pin inside.'

'Godfrey,' said Angel gravely, 'this isn't a thing to laugh at. Where have you been?'

'To Farmer White's pond to have a naval battle,' said Godfrey frankly.

'You must never go to that pond alone; it is deep in the middle and very dangerous, and you have disobeyed Aunt Betty. Next time you do it, I—I shall be obliged to whip you.'

Angel's voice faltered, and she turned a little pale as she spoke. In those days most little boys were whipped for disobedience, and Angel had always had a dreadful feeling that she might have to do it some day. There was no one else whose business it was to punish Godfrey, and so she knew that the duty would have to be done by herself, and the very thought made her feel quite cold and shaky.

Godfrey looked straight into her eyes.

'Yes, Aunt Angel,' he said. Then he suddenly took hold of her hand and stroked it.

'I didn't want to crack your heart, and Aunt Betty's,' he said. 'Please don't get thin; I'm sorry I had the battle. I'll go home now, and write all about the cover-up-candle-bell.'

For the next few days there was no fault to find with the way Godfrey's lessons were learnt, and he watched for every chance of pleasing Angelica, as if he were really afraid of her heart cracking, as Betty had suggested it might. The weather was cold and frosty now, and the two young aunts were much disturbed at the idea of Godfrey's first winter in a northern climate. Angel consulted with Penny and Martha, and stitched away diligently to provide the necessary warm clothes, and he certainly looked much stronger already than when he had first come to Oakfield.

There came a day, a bright, frosty day in December, when both the young ladies were in the kitchen helping Penelope with the mince-meat for Christmas pics, and Godfrey had his sum to do in the parlour by himself. Outside the sun was shining. There had been a little sprinkling of snow the day before and a sharp frost at night, and all the garden was white and sparkling like the ice on a sugared cake, while the bare trees shone like fairy land. Godfrey's eyes would not keep on the grey figures and the black slate. It was his first English winter, you see, and it seemed to him like Aunt Betty's stories of enchantment. And besides, only last night, when they sat together in the window seat and watched the stars coming out keen and clear above the white world, she had told him about Arctic discoverers, and how they sailed away over the grey northern seas till the ice barred their way, and how the bones of many brave men had been left behind in that dread, frozen world. Thinking of those great deeds always made Godfrey's cheeks glow and his heart beat quick, and now he laid down his slate and went and leaned with both elbows on the window ledge and looked out. And looking at what we want and oughtn't to have is a first step which takes us a long way, and the end of it was that Godfrey did as I fear many of us have done before him—left what he ought to do for what he wanted to do; that is to say, he went into the hall, took down his hat and coat, and went out into the frosty garden. He opened the wicket gate into the field, and the first person he saw there was Nancy Rogers, looking like a Christmas card with her red cloak and hood and a basket on her arm, as she came up the steep, snowy path which led across the field to the village.

Godfrey and Nancy were great friends, and she came running directly he called to her.

'Would you like to come for a cruise with me and the Victory, Nancy?' he asked.

Nancy knew as well as Godfrey that she had no business to go. Her mother and Patty had their Christmas preparations to make as well, and wanted the eggs she had been to fetch. But, like Godfrey, she put 'want' before 'ought' that afternoon.

'Mother always likes me to do what the young ladies and Master Godfrey want,' she said to herself, and so she turned her face away from home with Godfrey and the Victory.

'Please, where is the cruise, Master Godfrey?' she asked, as she trotted along on the frozen snow.

'We are going to sail the Victory on Farmer White's pond,' said Godfrey, 'and to watch those white ducks' harbours, for they've got ships building there I know.'

'Oh but, Master Godfrey, please we can't,' exclaimed Nancy; 'the pond's frozen and the ship won't float.'

'Frozen!' exclaimed Godfrey; 'do you mean to say all that water's ice like these puddles?'

Nancy nodded.

'I see it as I come along,' she said. 'Pete says two more nights' frost and we'll be going sliding.'

Godfrey had never been sliding, his thoughts were of Arctic discoverers.

'Very well, Nancy,' he said, 'if we can't watch the harbours we'll find the North-west Passage.'

'Yes, Master Godfrey,' said Nancy readily, and without the least idea what he meant.

'Do you know about the Arctic Circle?' asked Godfrey.

Nancy shook her head doubtfully; at the Oakfield Dame School there was not much taught beyond the 'three R's.'

'Please, is it quite round?' she asked respectfully.

'I don't know about round,' said Godfrey, who didn't quite understand the words himself, 'but I think it is a kind of fairy place. The sea is all ice, they have frost and snow there always.'

'Dear now, how bad for the early potatoes!' remarked Nancy, 'and as for sowing beans, why you might as well leave it alone. I suppose they just keep the cows on turnips year in, year out, poor things!'

'Cows!' said Godfrey scornfully; 'of course there aren't any cows, only Polar bears prowling on the ice. And there are icebergs, great mountains of ice all blue, and they come crashing together and grinding up the ships, like a great giant's teeth, Aunt Betty says. And it's always dark, dark all day for months together.'

'Oh dear!' said Nancy, much awe-struck, 'I shouldn't like to be one of the people that lives there, Master Godfrey.'

'Nobody does live there but the Polar bears, and there's a sort of red light comes in the sky that they can see to prowl by, I suppose, and the stars, I should think they're brighter than even they were last night; weren't they bright last night, Nancy, just about supper time?'

Nancy couldn't say she had noticed; there had been sausages for supper, father had killed a pig.

'But if nobody lives there how do they know about it?' she asked.

'Because brave men have gone there to see,' said Godfrey, with the eager light coming into his eyes. 'Aunt Betty says that country is full of the graves of brave men who have gone up there and died away in the dark and the cold.'

'Poor things!' sighed Nancy. 'I daresay now their friends will have put up nice handsome stones over their graves, won't they?'

'No, there aren't any stones,' said Godfrey; 'Aunt Betty says their deeds are their monuments.'

Nancy looked as if she thought such monuments rather unsatisfactory.

'Father put up a nice stone with a vase a-top of it to his great-uncle,' she remarked, 'and the captain's grandfather he's got two angels crying and a skull at the bottom; it's a nice handsome grave, that is.'

They had reached the pond by this time, a piece of dark water over-hung by willows and covered with black ice, which had been broken at one end for the cattle to drink. Godfrey began at once to invent.

'We'll put the Victory here,' he said, launching his boat into the dark hole; 'this is the last piece of open water, Nance, and from here we must just take to the ice, you and I, and leave the crew to take care of the ship till we get back. Take your rifle, I see there are Polar bears prowling over there among the icebergs.'

'Where?' asked Nancy, rather alarmed.

'Why there, things with turned-up tails and what you'd p'r'aps take for yellow bills when first you saw them. I should like their fur for Aunt Angel. Now we are going to start to find the North-west Passage. Beyond that place where the Polar bears are no one has ever been, and no one knows what is there.'

'Oh yes, please, Master Godfrey, I do,' exclaimed Nancy, ready as usual with information; 'the pig-sty.'

'Nobody knows that comes with me on the Victory', persisted Godfrey firmly, 'or if they do they've got to think they don't know as soon as possible. Now, say good-bye to the crew and come along.'

Nancy did not find it so easy as Godfrey seemed to do to imagine the empty decks of the little Victory fully manned, so her good-byes did not take long. But when she found that her captain's intention was to cross the pond on the ice, she hung back.

'It won't bear, Master Godfrey; Pete said it wasn't going to bear to-day.'

'What's bear?' asked Godfrey, with a foot on the ice.

'You can't walk on it, it'll break,' urged Nancy.

'What'll happen if it does?' asked Godfrey, with interest. That dark smooth surface, the first ice he had ever trodden on, had a strange attraction for him.

'You'll be drowned,' said Nancy solemnly; 'Pete knew a man whose brother was drowned through the ice. He'd had a drop too much beer and he got off the path.'

'There isn't any path here and I don't drink beer,' said Godfrey loftily. 'Are you coming?'

'Oh, if you please, Master Godfrey, I think I'd sooner stop with the crew!' faltered Nancy.

'Very well,' said Godfrey calmly; 'if I leave my bones in the Arctic Circle, go home in the Victory and take the news to my countrymen in England.'

'Oh, Master Godfrey, do come back!' screamed Nancy, for the ice was really swaying; 'it won't be only your bones, it will be all of you if it breaks.'

'I can't hear you,' said Godfrey, with his back to her; 'you and the crew are miles away, I'm beyond where the foot of anything ever trod except Polar bears. Why, what's that?' and he doubled up his hand and looked through it for a telescope.

'It's the tub they used to use for the pig-wash,' exclaimed Nancy; 'it's frozen into the ice. Oh, Master Godfrey, do come back!'

'Some other discoverer has been here before me,' said Godfrey gravely, without noticing her. 'I see the hulk of a vessel locked in the ice, and unless I am mistaken she flies English colours. I must board her and see whether——'

A shriek from Nancy and a dreadful rumbling crack cut short his speech, and the next moment Godfrey knew what was meant by ice not bearing. The smooth surface gave way under him, the cold water was round his feet, and in an instant he would have been underneath it altogether but for the tub, to which he clung with all his might. There was a dreadful moment while Nancy screamed at the top of her voice and Godfrey's knees and feet battered the tub in the cold black water, then with the triumphant exclamation, 'I've boarded her,' he tumbled over into it.

Luckily the tub, though old, was fairly water-tight, and bobbed up and down with Godfrey inside it in the big hole which he had made, and though a wide space of cracked ice and dark water lay between him and the shore, he seemed to be safe for the present. As for Nancy, she did the wisest thing she could and rushed down the lane calling for help. She did not have to run far. Almost directly she heard steps on the frosty road, quickened at the sound of her screams, and a gentleman came round the bend of the lane, sending his voice before him as he shouted: 'What's the matter?'

His own eyes told him quicker than Nancy's breathless explanation.

'All right,' he exclaimed, 'he's safe while he keeps still. Don't cry, little woman, and I'll tow him ashore.'

The next minute he had dragged a rail from a broken fence close by and held it out to Godfrey.

'Hold tight,' he said; 'stand in the middle so that you balance your craft. Now then, a long pull and a strong pull,' and in another minute he had dragged the tub through the drifting ice to the bank and was lifting Godfrey out.

'There, young man,' he said as he set him on his feet, 'lucky for you you're safe ashore, for this pond's deep enough to cover half-a-dozen giants of your height. How came you cruising among the ice in a leaky craft, I should like to know?'

'I boarded her because the ice broke,' said Godfrey frankly; 'I didn't know it was going to break.'

'No, I don't suppose you did. Lucky for you that you had her to board, young gentleman. Now then, right about face, and put your best foot foremost, and home as fast as you can before you get cold. Where do you live?'

'At Oakfield,' said Godfrey, picking up the Victory.

'At Oakfield, do you? Then we shall have the pleasure of each other's company, for I am going that way. Let's see how fast you can walk.'

Godfrey and Nancy trotted beside him as he strode along the frosty road.

'Now what put it into your head to come and look for frozen-up craft in the pond here?' he asked.

'I didn't,' said Godfrey. 'I came to watch the French ports, and then I found it had turned into the Arctic Circle, so I went after the North-west Passage instead. I wanted to be like one of those brave men.'

'Did you, though? And what particular heroes do you want to imitate?'

'I want to be a brave sailor,' said Godfrey promptly, 'like Lord Nelson, and Admiral Collingwood, and most of all Kiah Parker's Captain Maitland.'

'And why "most of all"? I hope you'll be a braver man and a finer fellow than that, young man.'

Godfrey's head only reached about as high as the gentleman's elbow, but he looked at him with as much scorn as if he had been a head taller.

'You don't understand a bit about it,' he said; 'nobody could be a finer fellow than the captain if he tried all his life long. P'r'aps you don't know about him carrying the little cabin-boy below with the French bullets flying all round; you'd better get Kiah to tell you, and then you'll be sorry you've been so stupid.'

'Oh well, we won't quarrel about such an unimportant person. What house in Oakfield do you live in?'

'At Oakfield Cottage,' said Godfrey, still a little distrustful of a man who called Captain Maitland an unimportant person.

'Oh, I remember going to Oakfield Cottage when I was a little boy. And whom do you live with?'

'With my two maiden aunts,' said Godfrey.

'They're so good!' put in Nancy, who liked to have her word in the conversation.

'I've no doubt they are. Now I haven't got any aunts at all that I know of, married or single. We'd better not tell these good ladies how nearly their nephew was at the bottom of the pond or we shall frighten them out of their wits, I'm afraid.'

'Oh, but I must,' said Godfrey, gravely, 'because they told me not to come, and I did, and Aunt Angel's going to whip me.'

'Ah, well, of course we must tell the truth then, and perhaps if I beg for you I might get her to let you off the whipping.'

Godfrey shook his head.

'Aunt Angel always does what she says,' he remarked.

'Well, she's quite right there,' said his new friend, though to himself he thought,

'Poor little chap, he's small for flogging. I wonder if the old lady's hand is heavy.'

Then he asked aloud,

'What made you come Arctic exploring if you knew the whipping was to follow?'

'I didn't like my sum,' confessed Godfrey, 'and I did want to be like those brave men.'

'Ah,' said the stranger thoughtfully, 'do you know, little chap, you've begun at the wrong end? What do you think makes a brave man?'

'Killing lots of Frenchmen,' said Godfrey promptly.

'Not a bit of it. Now, little maid, what do you say?'

'I think, please sir, that brave men don't mind when Frenchmen kill them, and shoot their legs and their fingers off like Uncle Kiah's.'

'That's nearer the mark, but that's not all. The bravest men are the ones that do what they don't like because it's right, and leave what they do like because it's wrong.'

Godfrey's grave eyes looked up at the gentleman's face as they were used to looking at his Aunt Angel. After a minute he said, slowly,

'Should I have been more like the captain if I'd stayed and done the sum instead of going to be an Arctic discoverer?'

'You'd have been more like a hero, my lad, and you will be another time, I know. This is the way to Oakfield Cottage, isn't it? Do you live there too, little lass?'

'Oh no, sir,' said Nancy; 'we live at the Place, sir, and take care of it for the captain.'

'Do you, though! And is it hard work?'

Nancy looked as important as if the welfare of the whole house depended on her efforts.

'Of course one can't help thinking a deal about what he'll say when he comes home,' she said. 'Patty says he'll as like as not be very particular in his ways. Sailors get to be that neat, she says. She always says it if I racket about or if I spill anything or break things.'

'Well, I wouldn't frighten myself before he comes, if I were you,' said the stranger good-naturedly. 'I shouldn't be surprised if he's not so very alarming. These people who look so big from a distance are often small enough when you get them close. Ah, there's the Cottage, I remember it, and somebody coming to the gate to look for you. These are your sisters, I suppose; you didn't tell me you had any sisters.'

'No,' said Godfrey, 'these are my aunts.'

Then he ran straight forward and had hold of Angelica's dress in a moment, looking up straight into her face.

'Aunt Angel,' he began, when Betty stopped him by a scream.

'Godfrey, you're wet! Wherever have you been?'

'I've been in the pond,' said Godfrey's clear voice; 'I mean my legs have. Before that I was on the ice, but it broke, and then there was only water for me to be on. If there hadn't been a tub I should have been at the bottom. Aunt Angel, Aunt Angel dear, don't look like that; your cheeks are quite white—oh, is your heart cracking? I've come for you to whip me; please whip me quick. I wanted to be brave, and I've begun at the wrong end.'

'Oh, Godfrey, how could you, how could you?' faltered Betty.

'It wasn't at all difficult, Aunt Betty,' said Godfrey earnestly; 'p'r'aps that was why it wasn't brave.'

'I beg your pardon,' said the stranger, who had been standing by unnoticed, 'but, if I might suggest, I would get this young gentleman's wet things off, and I'm sure he'll be none the worse, and will be wiser another time.'

Angel pulled herself together and made a grave curtsey.

'Thank you, sir, for your kindness in bringing our nephew home. He shall come indoors and get dry at once. Godfrey, come with me,' and she curtsied again and led Godfrey into the house. Betty was following when Nancy rushed up to her and whispered eagerly:

'Please Miss Bet—Miss Elizabeth, the gentleman got Master Godfrey safe out of the tub. I don't know what we should ha' done if it hadn't ha' been for him.'

'I'll run and thank him again,' said Betty impulsively; 'what's his name, Nance?'

'I don't know, miss; I never saw him before.'

I think p'r'aps I ought to ask him in,' said Betty, and she followed the stranger down the lane. He turned at the sound of her steps and took off his hat.

'I'm afraid you think us very rude, sir,' she said, with a pretty blush, 'but we were—we were thinking very much about our nephew, you see; he has no one but us to think for him. We are very much obliged indeed to you, my sister and I. Will you—will you come in and have a glass of elder wine, if you have far to go in the cold?'

'Thank you very much,' said the stranger heartily. 'I shall hope to avail myself of your kind hospitality another day, for I am staying a short time in Oakfield, and shall hope to see more of your nephew, who seems to me a very fine little fellow. I must ask my friend here to show me the shortest cut to Oakfield Place,' and he looked at the astonished Nancy with a sly smile. 'My name is Maitland, Captain Maitland of the Mermaid. Come along, little woman, and make a clean breast of the Arctic expedition,' and he took off his hat again, gave his hand to Nancy, who could do nothing but stare at him with her mouth and eyes wide open, and went off down the road. It must be confessed that Betty, though she was thirteen years old and an aunt, stared very hard after him too, and stood by the garden gate in the darkening winter afternoon looking with all her eyes down the lane, as if one of the heroes of her history books had suddenly come to life. Then she turned round and rushed back to the house and half-way up the stairs, burning to tell her news. But there she stopped short suddenly, and after a minute sat down on the stairs and dropped her chin in her hands. There she sat without moving until the door of Godfrey's room opened and Angelica came out. The two sisters sprang to meet each other.

'Oh, Angel!' burst out Betty.

'Oh, Betty, I've done it!' and Angel sank down on the stairs, and hid her face on her sister's shoulder.

'Have you whipped him?' asked Betty.

'Yes, I said I would, and I had to; you know what Martha said—he must be able to depend on what we said. I whipped him and put him to bed.'

'Poor Angel, poor dear, how your hands are shaking. You couldn't have hit him very hard.'

'I don't know; it seemed to me as if I did, and he is so little.'

'Did he cry?' asked Betty.

'Oh no, but he's so brave he wouldn't, not even if I really hurt him dreadfully.'

The idea of slender, gentle Angelica doing bodily violence to any one would have been amusing if the sisters had not been too serious to see it.

'Penny met us on the stairs,' Angel went on, 'and she wanted to pet him, and I wouldn't let her. I think she thought me very cruel, and if she knew I'd whipped him——'

'Well, we ar'n't bringing up Godfrey to please Penny,' said Betty decidedly, 'and really and truly, Angel dear, I expect you hurt yourself more than you did him. Come down into the parlour, your fingers are as cold as ice. I've got something to tell you, too.'

She put her arm round her sister's waist, and drew her downstairs, telling the remarkable news about the strange gentleman as they went. Angel could not but be interested.

'Captain Maitland,' she said, 'was it really? Do you know I hardly saw him, I only had a sort of idea that there was a gentleman there. I hope I was not very rude. I ought to have said something more to him.'

'But I did, Angel, so it doesn't matter. I offered him elder wine—that was all right, wasn't it? But I was so glad when he said no, for you know that little last piece of cake is getting stale, and we don't bake till to-morrow, and Penny might have been cross about getting the wine hot with all the mince-meat about.'

'Perhaps it was as well,' said Angelica rather abstractedly. 'How odd it should have been Captain Maitland, Godfrey's hero, that brought him home! Did Godfrey know who he was?'

'I don't think so; I'm sure Nancy didn't. I'm not sure whether he's quite like what I expected, Angel.'

Angel scarcely answered, there was not much room for any one except Godfrey in her thoughts at that moment. Penelope came in presently with a log for the fire, and an air of severe disapproval about her, and asked stiffly whether the poor dear young gentleman upstairs were to have any supper or not. Angel ordered bread-and-milk very quietly, but in such a way that Penny went out of the room with no more than a half-suppressed snort.

'She hates me,' sighed Angel sorrowfully; 'I wonder if Godfrey does.'

'He isn't such a stupid,' said Betty stoutly; and they sat together silent in the twilight, missing the little figure that always squeezed up between them during that idle half-hour—''twixt the gloaming and the mirk.' At last Angel stood up and said, almost appealingly:

'Betty, don't you think I might go to him now?'

'Angel dear, I've been biting my tongue for ever so long to keep from saying it. I'm quite sure you might.'

Angel waited for no more. She was upstairs directly and pausing at Godfrey's door. How would he meet her? Would he be sulky? Would he refuse to speak to her? She hesitated with her fingers on the handle. Then she heard Godfrey's voice inside. He seemed to be saying his lessons.

'England is an island; an island is a piece of land, and I'm not going to say what it is surrounded by, but I know. France is a country, and the capital of it is Paris, and I'm not going to say what there is between France and England, nor what there are sailing about there, but I know.'

'Godfrey,' said Angelica softly in the doorway.

'Aunt Angel!' and a pair of arms were stretched out in the dusk, and Angel's head drawn down until her face was close to Godfrey's own.

'Aunt Angel, Aunt Angel dear, I can't see you in the dark, but I'm feeling your cheeks to see if they are thin. Do you feel at all as if your heart was cracking? Promise me you and Aunt Betty won't be like that Aunt Jane.'

'We shall both be very happy, Godfrey, if you are sorry for being naughty, not only for vexing us,' said Angel with a deep breath of relief.

'I am,' said Godfrey eagerly; 'I won't again. I've begun directly beginning at the right end. Did you hear me beginning at the right end, Aunt Angel?'

'The right end of what, dear?'

'Of being a brave man. That gentleman said it was doing what you didn't like because it was right, and leaving the nice things because they were wrong. So I'm saying my geography, and leaving out all the parts about ships. Do you think he knows, Aunt Angel? I think he is a good man, only rather stupid.'

'What makes you think he's stupid, Godfrey?'

'Because he didn't seem to think that Kiah's captain was a very, very great man. But I daresay he was only ignorant, and Aunt Betty says we should never be hard on ignorance.'

Angel smiled in the dark.

'I can tell you why he said that, Godfrey,' she said. 'Do you know, that gentleman is Captain Maitland himself?'

Godfrey sat upright, and Angel could feel rather than see his wide eyes fixed upon her.

'Him! That man that got me out of the tub! he whispered, in an almost awe-struck voice; 'is that Kiah's captain? And I never knew.'

'You'll see him again,' Angel said, tucking him up fondly; 'he is coming to see us, he told Aunt Betty so.'

Godfrey was silent for fully a minute. Then he said, doubtfully:

'But why did he say that? Because he must know how brave he is.'

'I don't think that really brave, good people ever think much of themselves,' said Angel thoughtfully.

'Why don't they?'

'I think,' said Angelica, turning over the thought in her slow deliberate way, 'I think, Godfrey, it is because they expect more of themselves. It is like going up a mountain, the higher you get the further you see, and you see heights above you and don't feel as if you had got very far. When people begin to be a little brave and good they see better what real courage and goodness mean, and they aren't satisfied with themselves.'

Godfrey had drawn her face down on to the pillow beside him.

'I suppose he knows a great deal about being brave,' he said. 'Do you think he does what he doesn't like when it's right?'

'Yes, Godfrey dear, I expect he does.'

'So do you, don't you? I know you didn't like whipping me; I know what your face is like when things hurt you. Dear little Aunt Angel, you sha'n't make that face any more for me; you're beginning at the right end of being brave, I suppose. I didn't know before you could be brave, but I thought it was all killing Frenchmen. Tell me something: do women have to do that, what you said about leaving the world better?'

'Oh yes, Godfrey,' whispered Angel. It was easy to talk, she felt, here in the dusk, with the soft cheek pressed against hers. 'Even if they can't do any great work themselves, perhaps they can help those who do.'

'Like you and Aunt Betty and me. I'm your little oak-tree, like godpapa Godfrey's, and you planted me and you look after me. And you'd like me to come up brave and be a great captain and win a battle one day. Would you mind if the Frenchies shot my leg off, like Kiah's?'

'I should have to try to be proud, Godfrey; it would be very hard.'

'Then you'd be brave again, wouldn't you—braver than me, because I don't know that I should mind if I was as nice as Kiah? And p'r'aps the King would want me to have a medal, and I should say, "No, please, not for me, your Majesty"; and he'd say, "Who for, then?" and I should say, "For my maiden aunts."'



CHAPTER VI

CHRISTMAS AT OAKFIELD

'Round the world and home again, That's the sailor's way.'—WILLIAM ALLINGHAM

Captain Maitland did call at the cottage, as he had said, the very day after Godfrey's adventure. Angel and Betty felt a little alarmed, for they never had any visitors except the vicar of the parish of which Oakfield was an outlying hamlet. They sat up rather straight on the company chairs in the parlour, and Penelope, who had kept the visitor waiting at the door while she put on her best cap, brought in a bottle of gooseberry wine and a plate of sweet biscuits, for the cake which Angel had hoped would be ready against the time when the captain called was still in the oven. Perhaps it was the disappointment about the cake that upset Penny's ideas, for she never looked where she was going as she came in with the tray, and the consequence was that she stumbled over the round footstool with two wool-work doves sitting in a wreath of roses. It was a dreadful moment, while Penny came staggering forward with the gooseberry wine slipping off the tray, until she went full tilt into the arms of the captain, who had sprung to his feet, and managed very adroitly to catch the tray in one hand and hold up Penny with the other, while the sweet biscuits hailed upon him like bullets. Poor Penny turned and ran, with her cap over one ear, too much abashed even to see what damage was done, and Betty felt that if only the floor would open under her it would be a comfort. Only for half a moment. Then the captain turned round and said, with a most comical expression:

'I can't drink this whole bottle by myself. May I pour you out a glass?'

Betty could do nothing but burst out laughing, and Angel, in spite of her dismay, joined in, and as to Captain Maitland, he laughed out more heartily than any of them, and from that moment there was no more stiffness between them. The captain, though he seemed quite old to Godfrey, and indeed to his aunts too, was not thirty, for he had attained his promotion rapidly for courage and coolness in an encounter off the French coast. He had the frank cheery manners of a sailor too, so that it was not difficult to feel at home with him; besides, as Betty said afterwards, where was the use of pretending they didn't remember that he had had Penny in his arms, and that he had been on his knees under the table picking up the sweet biscuits?

He would be at home for about a fortnight, he said; he had not been to Oakfield for nearly seven years, not since his mother's death; and Angel thought the bright sunburnt face looked a little wistful, and felt sorry for him having no one to welcome him. But he smiled again directly as he said how glad he was to find the place so little changed; and then he asked if he might see the garden, he remembered being brought there when he was a very little boy; did the clove pinks still grow in the border under the yew hedge? So they all went out together, and the captain had forgotten nothing and greeted Miss Jane as an old friend; there had been a ship in the squadron off the Spanish coast, he said, whose figurehead always reminded him of her. And he remembered the view from the paddock, and missed the big elm that had been blown down two winters ago, and said what a good thing it was the storm had spared Sir Godfrey's tree; it would be a misfortune indeed if anything happened to that, but it seemed all right at present, as stout a heart of oak as the Admiral's flag-ship. And he heard that Cousin Crayshaw was coming down for Christmas, and said he remembered him and should do himself the honour of calling upon him. And then they all walked with him to the end of the lane.

'Do you know,' Betty said as they turned, back, 'I keep on forgetting that he is Kiah's captain, and yet I like to think he is.'

Angel and Godfrey felt much the same. It did seem so impossible that this cheery, simple man, who had laughed over the gooseberry wine, and been so interested in the garden, could be the hero who would perhaps be in the history books of the future. Why, they had been talking the whole time, telling him about the great gale which had blown the elm down, when he knew what a storm at sea was like, with waves mountains high, and mighty ships and brave men swallowed up among them, and he had asked about the bees and the best way of layering pinks as if he really cared to know. Could he have room in his thoughts for such simple things when strife and danger and bloodshed and the life-and-death struggle of nations were familiar to him?

As Betty said, they found it hard to believe, and yet it was very nice to think of, and seemed to mean that being a hero need not take one quite away from everything that other people loved and cared about, just as the good Admiral Collingwood noted on the eve of a great sea-fight that it was his little Sarah's birthday, and remarked while the French were pouring their broadside into his ship that his wife would be just going to church. And gentle Angel said to herself that perhaps after all, when Godfrey was a great man, he might be her Godfrey still if he could manage to copy Captain Maitland. And, meanwhile, she felt very glad and thankful on her boy's account for the captain's coming; for here at last, she said to herself, was what she had wanted so long, some one whom he could look up to and admire and try to copy. What a happy thing it was that he should have learnt from his first hero that lesson that the beginning of victory is the conquest of self.

Cousin Crayshaw was to arrive two days before Christmas, and Godfrey and his aunts had been busy decorating the cottage with holly for the occasion. Cousin Crayshaw was not a particularly interesting visitor certainly, but Betty, from the top of the stepladder, told Godfrey, with all the more emphasis because she didn't quite feel it herself, that they ought to be very thankful they had somebody to welcome.

Martha said that welcoming kept people's hearts warm. The two aunts and the nephew all had their own delightful Christmas secrets, and there was much whispering and great excitement and solemn taking of pennies out of Godfrey's money-box when Pete went to the county town with some hay. It was a very serious matter, for of course he could not consult the aunts, and he felt very important when he ran down to meet Pete, and waited at the end of the lane, jingling the pennies and listening to the sound of approaching cart-wheels. Peter saw the little figure waiting, and jumped down at once.

'Anything I can do in town for you, Master Godfrey?' he asked.

'Yes,' said Godfrey, very seriously, 'I am going to give you some money to spend, Pete, to spend on presents. I want two very beautiful presents for two ladies, and a little one that would suit an old nurse.'

'Certainly, sir,' said Pete gravely.

Godfrey jingled his pennies thoughtfully.

'There's a good deal of money,' he remarked. 'Perhaps there might be some over.'

'Very true, sir,' said Pete with much seriousness. Godfrey considered again. Then that happy Christmas feeling which makes our hearts widen to all the world got the best of it:

'If there should be any over, Pete,' he said, 'I should like you to choose another present.'

'I shall be proud to do my best, sir. Would the present be for a lady or a gentleman, sir?'

'For a gentleman, Pete. A gentleman not very young and not at all handsome, that doesn't care much about nice things or pretty things, so it mustn't be an ornament; and that only reads the paper, so it mustn't be a story-book; and that doesn't like any games, so it mustn't be anything to play with. Do you think you could do that, Pete?'

'I'd try, Master Godfrey. It 'd be a useful thing, now, the gentleman would fancy?'

'Yes, certainly useful,' said Godfrey decidedly; 'and rather cheerful too, if you could manage it, for Cousin Cray—I mean the gentleman—isn't a very cheerful gentleman, and I thought perhaps a present might make him a little more cheerful for Christmas.'

'And I'm to spend all this money, Master Godfrey?'

'Yes, all,' said Godfrey generously, pouring his pennies into Pete's hand; 'you're not to bring back one.'

'I do like giving presents,' he went on, as Pete counted the money and put it in his big leathern purse. 'If I had a lot more money I know what I'd do. I'd tell you to choose a present for a gentleman that is one of the very bravest, best people in the world, a gentleman that likes ships and fighting and gardens and flowers, and is always kind to every one except people he ought to kill; but I should think it would take nearly a hundred pounds to buy a present that would be good enough for him. Good-bye, Pete; I shall try and run round to the Place before lessons to-morrow to see what you've got.'

But Godfrey had not to wait till next morning, for just before his bed-time Penny came to the parlour door to say that Peter was in the kitchen and asking for the young master.

'It's business,' said Godfrey with an air of great importance—Betty always called any talk 'business' that Godfrey was not meant to hear. 'Please, Aunt Angel, let Penny stop here while Pete and I are talking in the kitchen.'

Pete was standing by the back door, with a sprinkling of snow on his hat and shoulders, and as Godfrey appeared he brought out from some safe pocket various parcels very tightly tied up, which, when they were undone, displayed a china cup with

'Remember me When this you see'

on it in gold letters, two china lambs lying under a tree, and a needle-book with a picture of Queen Charlotte outside. Godfrey was lost in admiration. They were perfect, they were just the very things. The lambs would stand on Aunt Betty's table and the cup would hold Aunt Angel's tea, and the needle-book would suit Penny exactly. 'And was there any more, Pete?' he asked. 'There couldn't have been, surely.'

Pete, for answer, produced another parcel from the depths of his pocket, and exhibited a wooden wafer-box, painted bright red, and with a picture of Mr. Pitt on the lid. Pete watched with the deepest interest while Godfrey opened it.

'You see, Master Godfrey,' he said, 'I was a-thinking the gentleman would be bound to do a deal of writing; and as you said he was partial to newspapers, seemed to me Mr. Pitt would come kind o' natural to him seeing they seem to be mostly about him; and the red colour looks sort o' cheerful and might liven the gentleman up. Hoping it meets your fancy, Master Godfrey.'

'I think it's beautiful,' said Godfrey earnestly; 'you are a very clever person, Pete. Do you mean to say you got it all for that money?'

The smile on Pete's face broadened out, till it reached nearly from ear to ear.

'Well, sir,' he said, 'fact is, for its size and being such a good article, it was wonderful cheap, and there was some money out when I paid for it. And you being so particular about my not bringing a penny home, seemed to me I'd risk bringing this little thing here, in case it might come in handy for what you were talking about.'

So saying, Pete brought out another parcel, and out of the paper came a second box, coloured dark blue this time, and adorned with a picture of a ship in full sail, surrounded by a wreath of convolvulus.

'You see, Master Godfrey,' explained Pete, 'it seemed to me, with you saying the gentleman had a fancy for ships and flowers, and the colour being blue, which stands for sailors, it did seem the sort o' thing you were just a-wishing for.'

'But, Pete,' said Godfrey, as if hardly daring to believe in so grand an idea, 'do you think that sort of gentleman would be likely to be using wafers?'

'Bound to, sir,' said Pete promptly; 'you see, he'd be writing to the Admiral about all the fine things him and his ship was doing, and besides he'd be writing home to folks he was fond of, folks that thought about him, and—and gave him presents and such like.'

'Oh no, Pete, no,' said Godfrey, almost breathless, 'he wouldn't be writing to those sort of people. But really, Pete, I do think the box is very, very beautiful; and do you think—do you think he would be offended if I gave it to him?'

'I'll warrant he'd be as pleased as you like, Master Godfrey,' said Pete heartily; 'he's not the sort to take offence, isn't the captain. Why, bless you, Nancy brought him in a few berries out o' the hedges on Sunday and he made such a work with them as you never saw.' Pete had dropped the little fiction about the gentleman in his interest, and Godfrey did not object.

'I'm very, very much obliged to you, Pete,' he said earnestly; 'I'm as happy as ever I can be. Good-night, dear Pete, and thank you very, very much.'

And so came Christmas, the children's festival, touching home life and child life with its great majesty and beauty. Can any one dare to despise simple things and simple souls when all Christendom comes adoring to a poor cradle and angels stoop to sing carols to shepherd folk? Some such thoughts came into Angelica Wyndham's mind when Nancy ran over on Christmas Eve, very eager and excited, with the captain's compliments, and would Mr. Crayshaw and the young ladies and Master Godfrey dine with him next day; and, please, she did hope they would come, for they were all going to have snap-dragon, and the captain had sent her out with such a lot of money to buy the raisins. And Angel wondered whether after all it was not surprising but right and natural that the captain should care for such things. Wasn't it the Christmas lesson that the great and the simple lie close together, and that the men who are foremost in the midst of death and danger have room in their hearts for children and flowers and home joys and Christmas games as well? And then Cousin Crayshaw had said he would go, and had declared he had a great respect for Captain Maitland. Altogether, it was the happiest Christmas that the sisters had ever spent at Oakfield. And I think there must have been some magic about that cheerful wafer-box with the picture of Mr. Pitt. Mr. Crayshaw found it on his plate on Christmas morning, with an inscription upon it which had been composed by Pete, but written in Godfrey's own firm round hand, and with spelling which was also quite Godfrey's own—'To my deer and respekted cuzon.' And something about the box or the inscription—or was it just a Christmas thought which they put into his head?—made Mr. Crayshaw turn away to the window as if to admire the striking likeness of Mr. Pitt, and then take off his spectacles and rub them and put them on again; and then he did what he had never done before, came round to Godfrey's chair, and put his hands on the little boy's shoulders and kissed his forehead. They walked to church along the ringing frosty road, with the wide white common spreading away on each side like the snow-fields of Godfrey's Arctic stories. And at the churchyard gate they paused, because there were two figures going slowly up the path before them, Captain Maitland, walking erect and steady, with old Kiah Parker on his arm.

'Easy now, easy now, Kiah,' he was saying, 'you'll have me on my nose if you go that pace, man; you and I are more at home on deck than on slippery ground; don't send me sprawling at the very church door, my hearty.'

And as for Kiah, he looked prouder than the Admiral of the Fleet.

After church, however, he hobbled on ahead with Peter and Nancy, while the captain stayed to speak to the party from the cottage. He had had the most beautiful Christmas present, he said, just the very one thing he couldn't have done without any longer. And somebody must have chosen it just to suit him, for it was a real bit of the old blue, and as for the ship, why the Mermaid might have sat for the portrait.

'Just the thing for a present to a sailor from a sailor that is to be,' he said; and Godfrey looked as if he had nothing else in the world to wish for.

'Are you going to let me have the little lad one day, sir?' the captain said to Mr. Crayshaw, when Godfrey had walked on in front between his two aunts.

'You do him very great honour, sir,' said the lawyer. 'I have not thought much at present about the boy's future career. He has been a difficulty, Captain Maitland, something of a difficulty. I was afraid that his unfortunate surroundings during his early childhood had had a very bad effect upon his character; but he is much improved, very much improved indeed. You think something may be made of him?'

'I think he is the sort of stuff that heroes are made of,' said the captain thoughtfully, 'and he has such influence about him now as makes heroes.'

Mr. Crayshaw glanced at the three in front of him and coughed in an embarrassed way.

'Angelica is—is a very good girl,' he said; 'indeed they are both very good girls, very good girls. I had my doubts as to the desirability of leaving Godfrey under their charge, but I feel satisfied now that at present I could hardly do better for him.'

'I think he is having such training as will bless his whole life,' said Captain Maitland gravely, and Mr. Crayshaw did not contradict him. Perhaps a thought came over him that if he had had a gentle Angelica and a bright, loving Betty beside him when he was young, his life might have been a better and a more beautiful thing.

An invitation to dinner was such a rare thing at Oakfield that there was a good deal of excitement about getting ready for it. Penny and Angel and Betty all brushed Godfrey's hair in turn, until he was thankful to escape and leave his aunts to get dressed on their own account. But he very soon came rushing upstairs again two steps at a time, and asked eagerly at their door if he might come in.

'Aunt Angel, Aunt Betty, look!' he exclaimed as he burst into the room, 'presents, from Cousin Crayshaw. Oh, do look!—A seal, a real proper seal that belonged to grandpapa, with words on, that makes a mark when you hold it down on your hand hard. And this box has got things in for you; he said so. He was so funny, and he said it so fast I didn't hear it all; but he said I was to give it to you, Aunt Angel, because it was yours really, and perhaps it would help you to remember some things that were past and to forget some others. What did he mean? Only open it, do open it!'

So Angel opened the box, with Betty looking over her shoulder and peering between her falling curls, and Penny peeping over her. And it was Penny who was the first to exclaim, while she hugged both her young ladies in her delight:

'Oh, bless you, my dears, they're your dear mamma's jewels! Dear, dear! and don't I know 'em if any one does, me that put them on her times enough.'

'Mamma's things! Oh, Angel!' said Betty in hushed tones, touching the trinkets with reverent fingers. Angelica had put her hands before her eyes. A great rush of memory was sweeping over her, for it is the little things that take hold of our minds when we are children, and the sight of them in after years brings the big things in their train. And those pearls used to be twisted among the sunny curls of the head that had bent over her little bed on long ago evenings, and the ruby ring had sparkled on the hand that used to clasp her baby fingers. And that miniature with its gold setting? Did not mamma wear it on a gold chain out of sight? Had not Betty's little restless fingers pulled it out one day, and had not Angel wondered as her mother kissed it with dewy eyes and put it back? Betty was holding it to the light.

'Why, Angel,' she exclaimed wonderingly, 'it's Godfrey.'

And Penny, with her apron to her eyes, explained,

'No, no, my dear, it's his poor dear papa, that's who it is.'

'My papa!' ejaculated Godfrey, with round eyes, 'why, Penny, it's a little boy.'

'And so he was a little boy,' sobbed Penny, 'and the dearest, beautifullest little boy ever I saw or anybody saw, and his dear mamma had his picture done the day he was eight years old, and she wore it till she died, bless her heart.'

Angel bent her head and kissed the laughing face as she had seen her mother kiss it.

'And Cousin Crayshaw sent it to us,' said Betty thoughtfully; 'now I know what he meant about remembering and forgetting.'

'I don't,' said Godfrey, 'but I want Aunt Angel to hang papa's picture round her neck.'

'Yes, yes, Angel, you must,' said Betty eagerly, clasping the chain about her sister's throat; 'you talked to him—you remember—and I don't really, though I'm sure I feel a kind of something as if I should know him.'

'Then you must wear mamma's pearls, Betty dear, you must indeed.'

'No, indeed, I mustn't, because you are going to. Yes, you are, Angel, don't say a word—you are going to wear them in your hair like she used to. Penny, please put up Angel's hair like mamma's picture. I am going to have this dear, dear brooch, with all the twisted bits of gold and the little tiny diamonds; fancy me in diamonds! You ought to have them really, but I know you like the others best.'

And so, a few minutes later, when Angel met Cousin Crayshaw on the stairs, he quite started at the sight of her, with the gold chain round her neck and the pearls among her dark curls.

'You have given us the most beautiful Christmas present in the world, Cousin Crayshaw,' she said, holding out her hands to him. And Mr. Crayshaw, with a sudden impulse, kissed her forehead as he had kissed Godfrey's.

'They were yours already, not mine, my dear,' he said, and then he added:

'You are very like your mother, Angelica, very like indeed.'

I don't think there could have been a merrier party than that Christmas dinner party at Oakfield Place.

Captain Maitland held the same opinion as a wise man who once said that 'it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas time, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.' And the captain had the power of not only being quite childishly happy himself, but of making those about him feel the same. The room was all bright with holly, and when pretty Patty had brought in the Christmas goose, and the captain had handed Angelica with courtly politeness to her place on his right hand, he set himself to keep the whole party laughing, and succeeded very well. For he told stories about Christmases at sea, and days when he was a boy at Oakfield Place, and got into scrapes and out again like other boys who had not grown up into heroes. And then he positively asked Mr. Crayshaw if he hadn't some stories of scrapes to tell, now that they were all making confessions. And before Betty's eyes had got back to their natural size, after her amazement at the idea of Cousin Crayshaw in a scrape, that gentleman was answering, with a sort of little cackle which really was almost a laugh, that he did remember once being out after time on a half-holiday, and finding the school-gate shut and climbing over it, and that his coat caught on the top and he hung there till it tore. And at the thought of Cousin Crayshaw hanging on a nail, Betty at any rate hid her face and laughed till she cried, and I believe Angel wasn't far behind her, and, most wonderful of all, Cousin Crayshaw didn't mind a bit. And when dinner was over, and they had drunk to 'Present Company' and 'Absent Friends,' and Mr. Crayshaw had proposed 'The Navy' in quite a fine speech, and Captain Maitland had proposed 'The Law' in a still finer one, then Patty came in with a twinkle in her eyes and moved away the table and pushed the chairs against the walls. And then the captain remarked that it was a cold night, and wouldn't it be a good thing if they were to warm their feet a little? And the next minute there was the sound of Kiah's wooden leg in the passage, and there he was with his fiddle, and the Rogers, all in their Sunday clothes, just behind him. And Patty ran to put down a line of mats, because wooden legs were not good for polished floors. And the captain made Angel such a bow, as if she had been Queen Charlotte herself, and hoped she would put up with an awkward old sailor for a partner, and he was sure Pete would show them the way with Miss Betty. And Godfrey did his very best to copy the captain as he gave his hand to Nancy. And then happened the most wonderful thing that ever had happened in Oakfield, for as Kiah struck up 'Off she goes!' Mr. Crayshaw suddenly went up to fair-haired Patty, who hardly knew where to look, and told her he had not danced for twenty years, but Christmas seemed the time for a frolic, and he would ask her to help him.

Then, when even Nancy and Godfrey were breathless, there came in one of Martha's best cakes and a big plate full of oranges. And the captain called upon Kiah for a song, which Kiah sang readily enough, and played for himself, too, on the fiddle, with the music a good way behind the words. And then they all joined in the chorus of 'Hearts of Oak,' and after that Angel's sweet voice started 'God rest you, merry gentlemen.' And then out with the lights and in with the blazing dish of snap-dragon! How valiant Godfrey was in pulling out plums for every one; how very, very nearly Betty set her lace ruffles on fire; what queer shadows the flickering light threw on the wall, and how strange the eager faces looked when the captain threw a handful of salt on the fire and the flame burnt blue, while Nancy got half frightened and hid behind Patty's skirts! But at last all the raisins had been pulled out and the fire was dying, and positively there was the clock striking ten! What a time of night for Godfrey and Nancy to be out of bed! But, as the captain said, who looks at the clock at Christmas time? So Martha and her daughters curtsied themselves out of the room, and Mr. Crayshaw stood at the door talking quite cheerily with old Kiah, while Betty kept Pete back a minute to ask about her linnet, which was ill—Pete knew so much about birds.

Godfrey had climbed into the window seat, and was peeping between the curtains to see if it looked like another frost.

'Look at the stars, Aunt Angel dear, aren't they bright? Is the Wise Men's Star there still, do you suppose? That's the Plough, isn't it? If one was up in the Plough could one see Oakfield, do you think?'

'I used to like to think one could,' said the captain, who had come up behind them. 'Many's the time, when I was a little bit of a middy, I used to watch the stars and feel quite friendly to them because they could see home. And the Plough, when I could see it, was a real old friend, I knew the look of it so well from this window.'

'I shall do that when I'm a middy,' said Godfrey gravely, 'and I shall think of them seeing my aunts and Oakfield, and they'll think of them seeing me.'

'So you've quite made up your mind to be a middy?' said the captain, with a hand on Godfrey's shoulder.

'Quite,' said the little boy earnestly; 'Aunt Angel says everybody must be useful, like you and Kiah, and she's teaching me to be. I'm like her's and Aunt Betty's little oak-tree, and they hope I shall grow up a very brave sailor. But she's really braver than me, for she says it will be very hard for her not to mind when the Frenchies shoot my leg off, and I don't think I shall mind much.'

Angel's cheeks were crimson at hearing her own words repeated. She looked so very sweet and womanly as she sat there in the window.

They had not lighted the candles again, and only the flickering fire-light played about her, touching her white dress and the curly locks, knotted up high behind her head, with the gleaming pearls among them.

The captain stroked Godfrey's hair.

'Ay, little man,' he said, 'the bravest hearts are the ones we leave at home; and more shame to us that we're not finer fellows when they take so much thought for us.'

Just then Betty called Godfrey, and he ran to bid Pete good-night. The captain stood looking after him.

'His Majesty's navy will be the richer for that lad one day, Miss Angelica,' he said.

Angel flushed with pleasure.

'I do hope so,' she said simply; 'Betty and I are almost afraid sometimes when we think what we want him to be, and that there is only us to teach him and fit him for it.'

'I don't think you need be afraid,' said Captain Maitland quietly; 'the navy is a rough school, Miss Angelica, but so is the world all over, I fancy, and I've known plenty of men who've lived and died on board as pure and simple as if they'd never left home. And they were mostly men who'd such a home life as your little lad to stick by them and keep them straight. Never mind about special training, just give him something to steer by, and trust me he won't go far wrong.'



CHAPTER VII

HERO AND HEROINES

'For though she meant to be brave and good, When he played a hero's part, Yet often the thought of the leg of wood Hung heavy on her heart.'—A.

Well, Christmas time, like all good things, had to come to an end, and so did the captain's stay at Oakfield. The village seemed very dull for a while after he went. Nancy cried bitterly when she said good-bye to him, and indeed so did Patty, and I fancy Betty shed a few tears in Miss Jane's arbour, she ran away there in such a hurry after watching the captain start, and came back with such red rings round her eyes. Good-bye is a hard word at any time, and harder still in war time, when it is overshadowed by that unspoken dread lest no future greeting should come in which the parting may be forgotten. As for Godfrey, when the captain was gone he went over to the Place and sat down in the kitchen by the side of Kiah. Kiah would miss the captain more than any one, but the worst part of the going to him was that he was not going too.

'You and me, young master,' he said to Godfrey, as the child sat on a low stool looking up at him, 'our orders is to bide in port. Only you're fitting for a cruise, you see, sir, and I'm just a hulk that'll never be seaworthy again. It don't become us to be asking questions about our orders, we'd better just get to work and do what we can, so I'll be off and chop a bit of firewood for Martha.'

'And I'll go home and learn my spelling,' said Godfrey.

And, indeed, he was back in the parlour and at work before Betty came to look for him, on which she gave herself one of her indignant scoldings, telling herself that Godfrey was ten times more fit to be her bachelor uncle than she was to be his maiden aunt.

And so the little household at the cottage went back to the quiet life in which Christmas had made such a pleasant break. Angel and Betty read French and history together, and helped Penny in the kitchen, and taught Godfrey, and walked with him, and mended for him and built castles in the air for him when he was in bed and asleep; and Godfrey learnt his lessons and played with Nancy, and spent all the time he could with Kiah, and in the twilight sat crushed up between his aunts in the great arm-chair and talked about what he would do when he was big and a sailor. Cousin Crayshaw came down every other Saturday and stayed till Monday, and Betty asked herself, as she watched him reading his paper in the evening, whether he could be indeed the same Cousin Crayshaw who had climbed over the school gate, and had danced 'hands across and back again' with Patty for his partner. But, though Cousin Crayshaw did not tell school stories or indulge in country dances at the cottage, still the remembrance of that evening was a link between himself and his young cousins which none of them could forget. The girls did not seem to respect him less because they were less afraid of him and because they ventured to talk about their own pleasures and interests in his presence, and indeed now and then he would ask questions himself, would even call Godfrey to him and want to know about his lessons and how he managed to amuse himself. And as the days got longer the three would coax him into the garden to look at their flowers coming up, and one day Betty boldly offered him an auricula for his button-hole. And though he seemed a little doubtful at first as to whether such an ornament would become a grave and sober person like himself, yet he let her put it in for him, and after that there was never a Sunday that some flower did not appear on his plate at breakfast, placed there by each of the three in turn. One evening, while he was reading the paper, he looked up to see Angel standing by his chair.

'Please, Cousin Crayshaw,' she said, with the colour coming into her cheeks, 'might I read to you for a little while, if you think I could read well enough?'

'It wouldn't interest you, Angelica,' said her cousin in surprise.

'Oh yes, it would,' pleaded Angel, 'especially if—if you would explain about it to us a little. We think, Betty and Godfrey and I, that we know so dreadfully little about the affairs of the country, and every one ought to care about their country, oughtn't they? and we want to understand about the war, because, you see, we must care about our soldiers and sailors, and Captain Maitland is there, you know.'

And so Mr. Crayshaw, with a half-amused smile, let her try, and positively found Betty's eager questions very interesting, and really enjoyed explaining difficulties with Angelica's earnest eyes looking up at him, so that the little household at the cottage became quite politicians, and followed the army and the fleet on the map with the deepest interest. And Pete's prediction was fulfilled, for Captain Maitland actually found time to write Godfrey a most interesting letter, which lived in Godfrey's pocket and slept under his pillow at night, till it tore to pieces in the folds, after which Angel mended it with paste, and it was locked into a box upstairs of which Godfrey kept the key, lest thieves should get into the house and steal it. They were stirring times, those first years of our nineteenth century, when the news from abroad was of fierce struggles by land and sea, when the talk by the fireside and in the village streets was of an invasion that might be, when Englishmen would have to stand shoulder to shoulder, and fight on their own thresholds for country and home. All these things, the battles and the sieges, the plans and counter-plans, the great names of men who helped to change the fate of Europe, we read in our history books.

The shadow of the war, the anxiety about the present and fear about the future, must have hung like a cloud over our country in those years, and yet, notwithstanding, life went on quietly in the homes which the great danger was threatening, and people worked and played and laughed, and cared more on the whole about their own small affairs than about the big affairs of Europe. And so, though those years when England's enemies were watching her across the narrow seas, and wise men were planning and brave men fighting for her liberties, are so interesting in the history books, there is not very much to tell about the good folks at Oakfield. In those days, when no one had begun to think about railways, country people left home very little, and the changes of the seasons, sowing and reaping, hay-time and harvest, made the chief events of their lives; and though it seemed very important to Oakfield, it wouldn't be very interesting to any one else to hear of the wonderful apple crop in the orchard at the Place, or of how the miller's pony strayed away on the common and was lost for two days, or of how Godfrey and Nancy missed their way when out blackberrying, and came home after dark to find the aunts half distracted and Rogers and Pete searching, all over the country.

'The slow, sweet hours that bring us all things good.'

Those words always seem to me to describe the quiet years when nothing particular happens, when we are growing and learning almost without knowing it, getting, as Captain Maitland had said, something to steer by in harder, busier days to come. Godfrey, when he looked back afterwards, couldn't remember any very big events in his Oakfield life—just daily lessons and daily games, stories from Betty, twilight talks with Angel, hours spent by old Kiah's bench at the Place—and yet those 'slow sweet hours,' more than the stirring days afterwards, were to influence his whole life and make a man of him.

How surprised his young aunts would have been if any one had told them on the day when their nephew first came to Oakfield that it would be Angel who would suggest to Cousin Crayshaw that it was time for him to leave them. Mr. Crayshaw found her standing by his chair one Sunday evening when he awoke from a little doze in which he had been indulging after supper.

'Cousin Crayshaw,' she began hesitatingly, 'have you thought lately what a big boy Godfrey is getting?'

'Big? Yes, yes, of course, very big,' said Mr. Crayshaw in surprise. 'What's the matter, Angelica? Why shouldn't he grow? He looks strong enough, I'm sure.'

'Oh, he's as strong as a little pony,' said Angel proudly; 'but, Cousin Crayshaw, don't you think he's getting rather big for us to teach?'

'Is he troublesome?' asked Mr. Crayshaw doubtfully.

'Oh no, no! Only Betty and I think he is getting old enough to be taught by a man.'

'Humph! That means school, I suppose,' said Mr. Crayshaw, 'or could we find him a tutor?'

'I think—at least, don't you think it ought to be school?' said Angel hesitatingly. 'I mean, if he is going to sea, oughtn't he to knock about with other boys a little first?'

Her cousin looked up thoughtfully at her.

'You'll miss him a good deal, won't you, my dear?' he said.

'Oh, it doesn't do to think about that,' said Angelica cheerfully.

'And you know, Cousin Crayshaw,' said Betty from her corner, 'you said when first we had him that we weren't to spoil him.'

'No, no, of course not, of course not,' said Cousin Crayshaw heartily; 'I'll inquire about a school.'

There was a little mischievous twinkle in Betty's eyes as she bent over her book, and when she and Angel were alone that night she threw her arms round her sister and burst out laughing. 'Oh, Angel, Angel, isn't it funny,' she cried, 'to think of you having to make Cousin Crayshaw send Godfrey to school?'

'I believe he is almost as loth to lose him as we are,' said Angel; 'don't you love him for it?'

'Yes, that I do; and do you remember how you wouldn't let me make Godfrey hate him? Angel dear, I'm just wondering how soon I and Godfrey and Penny and this house altogether would go to rack and ruin without you.'

And so Godfrey went to school.

It certainly was hard work letting him go, and Penny wore the same face all day as she had done when Angel had whipped him for disobedience, and evidently thought everybody very hard-hearted. And the house did seem fearfully empty and silent, especially in the first twilight hour, when Angel and Betty sat together in the big chair where there had always been room for a third.

Cousin Crayshaw arrived quite unexpectedly in the middle of the week, and gave no explanation whatever of his coming, except that he had brought Angelica a new book of poems; and how did he come to know Angel liked poetry, for he never read it himself? And better than the unexpected visit, almost better than the book, which Betty read till a dreadful hour that night, was Mr. Crayshaw's sudden exclamation,

'Dear me, how one does miss that boy!'

He was nearly strangled the next moment by Betty's arms thrown round his neck, and though he said,

'Elizabeth! Dear, dear, don't throttle me,' he did not seem angry.

Godfrey was just the sort of boy to get on well at school, and he was soon popular both with boys and masters. In after years there was a packet, put away among Angelica's more cherished possessions, and ticketed, 'Letters written from school by my nephew Godfrey,' and I think even the famous letter from the captain was not more read and re-read. There was one in particular which, I believe, had some tears dropped over it, though it was never shown to Martha and Penny as some of the others were.

'My dear Aunt Angel,' it ran, 'I have had a fight. The boy I fought was bigger than me. He gave me a black eye, but I gave him two. He said something about you and aunt Betty, but he never will again. Jones, who is the head of the school, says I am a good plucked one. He put some raw meat on my eye for me. I thought you might find it useful to know about it; it is the very best thing when anyone's knocked you about, only be sure you put it on at once. I send a kiss to Aunt Betty and one to Penny, and my love to Martha and Pete and Nancy and Kiah and Cousin Crayshaw.

'Your affectionate nephew, 'GODFREY WYNDHAM.'

'It's like the champions in the days of chivalry,' said Betty, with shining eyes, 'only instead of a beautiful ladye-love, the darling's been fighting and getting wounded just for his two maiden aunts. Angel, I believe that Jones is a dear boy. I should like to send a little cake for him when we send Godfrey one. Angel, do you—do you think it's our duty to scold Godfrey for fighting?'

'I'm not sure,' said Angel slowly; and then she added, for once as decidedly as her sister, 'but I'm sure I'm not going to.'

I expect a diary of the lives of Angelica and Betty for the next year or two would have run something in this way:

'Godfrey came home. Heard from Godfrey. Godfrey writes that the cricket season has begun. Godfrey brought home a prize. Godfrey went back to school' (this last with a very black mark against it). But such a diary, though it was deeply interesting to the two young aunts themselves, wouldn't make much of a story to those who didn't mark time by Godfrey's holidays, and so we must just take a leap over several of these uneventful years and come suddenly to the day which all the time had stood in Angel's mind as a sort of background to everything else that happened, the day which she had taught herself to think about, and which she prayed every day of her quiet life that she might be strong and brave to meet.

It was an autumn day, misty and still, like that on which Godfrey had first come to Oakfield, and Cousin Crayshaw came down in the middle of the week. It was late afternoon, and Angel was catching the last light from the window on her sewing; and when she raised her head at the sound of wheels, and saw her cousin get out of his chaise, she knew in one moment that the day she had been preparing for had come. She put her work down with very trembling hands, and went down the path to meet Mr. Crayshaw, knowing quite well what he had to say to her while he made little nervous remarks about the weather, until at last he took a paper out of his pocket and gave it her to read, watching her anxiously all the while. The writing seem to grow dim and uncertain before Angel's eyes, but she knew what it was—the order for Mr. Godfrey Wyndham to join the frigate Mermaid, Captain Maitland, ordered to the Channel, there to do the service of a midshipman. Angel's voice sounded to herself rather strange and far-away as she asked:

'When does the Mermaid sail?'

'In four days. Captain Maitland is in London; he'll be here to-morrow. I have sent for Godfrey. But dear me, dear me, Angelica, he seems very young, very young!'

And Angel said, in the same quiet tones, that Godfrey was nearly fourteen, and how fortunate it was for him to have the chance of being under Captain Maitland; they would be so happy to think of him on board the Mermaid. And when she went to find Betty, Mr. Crayshaw took off his spectacles and wiped them and remarked, as he had done on that past Christmas Day:

'Angelica is a good girl, a very good girl!'

After that there was no time at all for thinking. Angel said afterwards that her head seemed to be quite full of nothing but Godfrey's shirts, and a very good thing it was for all of them. Only while she stitched and sorted and packed, she had all the time a feeling that she ought to be saying something to Godfrey now, before he went out into the great terrible world of which she knew so little, something that would help him and strengthen him in the days to come. But there never came a minute for saying it until the very last evening, when Godfrey's box was packed, and his last visits paid in the village, where the old women cried over him in his uniform. The captain had gone for a walk with Mr. Crayshaw, Penny was getting supper ready, and Angel and Betty and Godfrey found themselves together in the garden, really with nothing more to do.