And henceforth this was to be Mary Layne's home, and this her occupation--caring for her mother, so long as the old lady should be spared, and gently leading to good the child, Arthur. Mrs. Layne, lapsing into her dotage, would sit in her favourite place, the parlour window, open when the weather allowed it, watching people as they passed. Mary's smooth and bright brown hair might be seen in the background, her head drooping over the book she was reading to Mrs. Layne, or over her work when the old lady grew tired of listening, or over Master Arthur's lessons at the table. Not only lessons to fit him for this world did Mary teach him; but such as would stand him in good aid when striving onwards for the next. Twice a day, morning and evening, would she take the child alone, and talk to him of heaven, and things pertaining to it. Aunt Elizabeth's lessons had been chiefly on the score of behaviour: the other sort of instruction had been all routine, at the best. Mary remedied this, and she had an apt little scholar. Seated on her knee, his bright blue eyes turned up to her face, the child would listen and talk, and say he would be a good boy always, always. The tears wet his eyelashes at her Bible stories: he would put his little face down on her bosom, and whisper out a sobbing wish that Jesus would love _him_ as He had loved the little children on earth. There is no safeguard like this seed sown in childhood: if withheld, nothing can replace it in after-life. They grew the best and greatest friends, these two. Whether Mary loved him, or not, she did not say; she was ever patient and thoughtful with him, with a kind of grave tenderness. But the child grew to love her more than he had ever loved any one in his young life. One day, when he did something wrong and saw how it grieved her, his repentant sobs nearly choked him. It was very certain that Mary had found the way to his heart, and might mould him for good or for ill. The child was a chatterbox. Aunt Elizabeth used to say he ought to have the tip of his tongue cut off. He seemed never tired of asking about papa and mamma in India, and Allan and Bobby and the rest, and the elephants and camels--and Dick the eldest, who was in London, at the school attached to King's College. "When will they come over to see us, Aunt Mary?" he questioned one day, when he was on Mary's knee. "If grandmamma's pretty well we, will have Dick down at Christmas." "Is Dick to be a soldier like papa?" "I think so." "I shall be a soldier too." There was an involuntary tightening of her hands round him--as if she would guard him from _that_. "I hope not, Arthur. One soldier in a family's enough: and that is to be Richard." "Is papa a very big, big brave man, with a flashing sword?" "Major Layne is tall and very brave. He wears his sword sometimes."