“I hope not; but it is very bad for any one to have a scare like that; and Bertie is not strong, and you big boys ought to be more manly than to combine against one smaller and weaker than yourselves. You would not like to be called cowards, but if you heard the story told in a book, I think you would call it a very cowardly trick to set upon a little fellow like Bertie and treat him as you did.” The boys flushed deeply, but did not try to defend themselves. They felt a little guilty and conscience-stricken, for one thing, and then Uncle Fred was an immense favorite, and they knew that he never spoke to them like this without good cause. But Queenie was indignant at having her brothers condemned, and she tossed her head in her favorite fashion as she exclaimed,— “_I_ think it’s Bertie who is the coward, Uncle Fred, not my boys.” He turned and looked at the little girl with a smile in his kind eyes. “Is it always cowardly to be afraid, do you think, Queenie?” “Of course it is, Uncle Fred!” she answered, quickly; and after a moment’s pause she added, proudly, “_I’m_ not afraid of anything!” “No?” he answered, questioningly; and then he looked grave as he said, glancing round at all the faces of his little relatives, “Perhaps you would all be braver and happier if you were afraid of more things.” Queenie looked surprised and defiant. Uncle Fred often puzzled her by some of the things he said, and she thought that this was great nonsense. She wondered why the boys said nothing and looked half ashamed; but she was not readily silenced, and answered, quickly,— “It _can’t_ be brave to be afraid, Uncle Fred. You’re only trying to puzzle us. Everybody knows that it’s only cowards who are afraid.” “Excuse me, Queenie, but you’re quite wrong there,” answered Uncle Fred, quietly. “All the bravest men I have known have been afraid—very much afraid, some of them—of some things.” “What sort of things?” asked Queenie, with a little gesture of scorn. “Rats, and mice, and snakes, and all that sort of thing?” Uncle Fred’s face looked rather grave, yet very kind, and he took Queenie’s hands in his and gazed down very steadily into the little girl’s blue eyes, that glowed and flashed rather excitedly. “No, my little maiden,” he answered, speaking in a tone that the children often heard him use, and that never failed to impress them more than they could quite understand. “No, Queenie, they were not afraid of things of that kind, these brave men whom it has been my privilege to know; they have been afraid of doing wrong, afraid of falling into careless, idle, disobedient ways, afraid of not proving themselves true and fearless servants of the King they had bound themselves to serve, afraid that by some act of their own, committed perhaps thoughtlessly and without intent of wrong, they might injure the great cause they had vowed to protect and to forward all their lives through.”