The arm that encircled him pressed him a little more closely. “Yes, my little boy, I have enjoyed it this year. And you?” “Oh, I have been very, very happy!—I always am now, you know.” “You are content to be my little boy? You do not want anybody else?” “I think I would rather be your little boy always now,” answered Bertie; and then he looked up into the face above him with a peculiar depth of gravity, and added, “I feel as if God had given me to you.” “I think He has, my child; and I am grateful to Him. He has given back to me a part of what He saw fit to take away. He has given me one little son to be with me in my old age.” Bertie sat up and looked into the face above him. “Papa,” he said, softly, “will you tell me one story to-night? I want to know about—about it all—when He took them all away.” There was a deep silence for a few minutes after those words were spoken, and Bertie, gazing into the father’s eyes, half repented of his question, and yet did not repent. He could not read the look upon that face, it awed him into unbroken silence; and yet there was no anger there, no sternness even, only a deep, far-off sadness, as if some picture were slowly rising above the mental horizon that could only be looked upon with tear-dimmed eyes and with tender, haunting regret. The moments seemed very long to Bertie, but he did not speak again. “My child,” said the Squire at last, “why do you ask for that story to-night?” Bertie hardly knew himself. “You have never told it me,” he answered, shyly; “and to-night—” “Well, to-night?” “To-night seems a happy time. It is Christmas, you know, and the angels are always glad at Christmas. I think they are always nearer us then, because, you know, the shepherds saw them once, as if they liked to fly nearer to us at Christmas-time—” Bertie paused again, hardly knowing how to frame the thought, and again the Squire said,— “Well?” “I thought, perhaps, they might be nearer to us to-night—Tom and Charley and all of them, you know. Perhaps they are helping the angels to sing; and if they are, I’m sure they would try to come near us to-night. I thought you would not mind telling me about them, when perhaps they are not so very far away. Don’t you think it is rather nice to think that they are up there—so happy helping the angels to sing, ‘Peace on earth and glory to God’?” There was another long silence, which again the Squire broke. “I will tell you the story to-night, my child, if you wish to hear it.” ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER XVIII. THE SQUIRE’S STORY. “SO you want to know the story of that summer fifteen years ago, do you? I, I have never spoken of that time to any living creature since, but, as you are to be my little son, perhaps you ought to know the story of those who went before you.”