Then when he thought of his mother all alone and the house so quiet around her and no one able to go to her he felt so miserable that he turned round from his village and stared desolately into the fireplace. The thought of his new sister came to him, but was dismissed impatiently. He did not want a new sister--Mary and Helen were trouble enough as it was--and he felt, with an old weary air, that it was time, indeed, that he was off to school. Nothing was the same. Always new people. Never any peace. He was startled by the sound of the opening door, and, turning, saw his father. His father and he were never very easy together. Mr. Cole had very little time for the individual, being engaged in saving souls in the mass, and his cheery, good-tempered Christianity had a strange, startling fashion of proving unavailing before some single human case. He did not understand children except when they were placed in masses before him. His own children, having been named, on their arrival, “Gifts from God,” had kept much of that incorporeal atmosphere throughout their growing years. But to-night he was a different man. As he looked at his small son across the schoolroom floor there was terror in his eyes. Nothing could have been easier or more simple than his lifelong assumption that, because God was in His heaven all was right with the world. He had given thanks every evening for the blessings that he had received and every morning for the blessings that he was going to receive, and he had had no reason to complain. He had the wife, the children, the work that he deserved, and his life had been so hemmed in with security that he had had no difficulty in assuring his congregation on every possible occasion that God was good and far-seeing, and that “not one sparrow...” And now lie was threatened--threatened most desperately. Mrs. Cole was so ill that it was doubtful whether she would live through the night. He was completely helpless. He had turned from one side to another, simply demanding an assurance from someone or something that she could not be taken from him. No one could give him that assurance. Life without her would be impossible; he would not know what to do about the simplest matter. Life without her...oh! but it was incredible! Like a blind man he had groped his way up to the schoolroom. He did not want to see the children, nor Miss Jones, but he must be moving, must be doing something that would break in upon that terrible ominous pause that the whole world seemed to him, at this moment, to be making. Then he saw Jeremy. He said: “Oh! Where's Miss Jones?” “She's in the next room,” said Jeremy, looking at his father. “Oh!” He began to walk up and down the schoolroom. Jeremy left his toy village and stood up. “Is Mother better, Father?” He stopped in his walk and looked at the boy as though he were trying to recollect who he was. “No... No--that is--No, my boy, I'm afraid not.”