Queenie and Phil came every year to spend a pleasant visit with Uncle Fred and Aunt Winifred; and the little girl often remains for many weeks after her brother returns to school; for there is something in the atmosphere of her aunt’s house which, as she expresses it, “does her good,” and she is always very reluctant to leave. She and Bertie are great friends, even if they are a little less outspoken than in old days. Now and then she tells him, in moments of unusual confidence, that she is trying to be more obedient, and does not find it quite so tiresome as she expected. She has learned, too, to believe in Bertie’s courage and high principles, and she has a warm and increasing admiration for him, and ranks him in her heart as her favorite next to Phil, and in some ways more of a hero, for Phil’s unbounded flow of spirits hinders him from posing in any way that could well be called heroic. I think it will be easy for anybody to believe that Bertie’s life is a very happy one. Of course he has his little trials and troubles and ups and downs, as we all have, and without which we should be sadly disposed to get careless and puffed up. He does not expect to be exempt from these, and he tries to bear them bravely and cheerfully. He is very grateful and happy in his life, and thinks that he is the most fortunate boy in the world. But, in spite of all this happiness, he has his moments of sadness, moments when there comes over him a sense that all things here fade and change, and that life will not always flow for him quite in this smooth channel. Such thoughts come over him not unfrequently, and with no little significance. For Sunday by Sunday he now stands for a few solemn moments bareheaded by a quiet grave beneath the yew tree, where the Squire has stood every Sunday of his life ever since his dear ones lay below the sod; and sometimes the lad will feel the pressure of a hand upon his shoulder, and will hear a familiar voice say, dreamily,— “When I am lying with them, my boy, at rest after life’s long battle, you will not forget me, will you?—nor the traditions of the old place that will be yours after me? You will be a kind and a just master, and keep up the honor of the old name? You will not forget the widow or the fatherless children, nor suffer the aged to want for daily bread? You will do as those before you have done, and more if the way opens before you? You will try to be a credit to a name that I love and respect for the sake of those who have borne it before me? When you are Squire of Arlingham, Bertie, you will try to be a good one?” It is hard for Bertie to answer questions like these, yet he looks up, after a struggle with himself, and says,— “I will try, father, I will try my very best; but I cannot bear to think of it. It is so hard to think of being left alone again.” The Squire with his quiet smile points to the words upon the marble slab.