Of strong character, with a will which was difficult to curb, he found it an inexpressible comfort to yield to One who was so strong, that there could not be a question of His power; and when once the great surrender had been made, he walked along holding the guiding hand with tender love and reverence. One morning, just as Agnes and her sisters were sitting down to lessons, a telegram was brought in by the new maid, whom Agnes had found and installed more than a month before. "We are in Liverpool, and hope to reach you about five o'clock," it said. Minnie and Alice got up and jumped round the room as the only suitable expression of their feelings; and as for Agnes, her thankfulness was quiet, but too deep for words. "May I rush in and tell grandmamma?" exclaimed Alice, when her wild capers had come at last to a stop. When she saw that Agnes gave permission, she snatched up the telegram and was off in an instant. "I don't believe she'll wait for her hat and jacket," said Minnie, acting policeman. "Oh, yes, she will! They are hanging in the hall." Minnie peeped out of window, and in another moment Alice, dressed in some style, emerged from the door, ran down the steps, and was admitted to the next house. "Must I go on with school?" asked Minnie rather forlornly. "No; to-day is too good a day for it not to be a holiday. Clear up the books, Minnie, and surprise Alice." Minnie did not need twice telling; and then she and Agnes went upstairs to prepare their parents' room, to see that the new Jane made a nice fire, and that everything was well aired and ready. While they were busy Alice came back from next door with a long, heavy roll in her arms. "The hearthrug?" questioned Agnes. "Yes. We are not to lay it down till everything is done and the room perfectly ready. Oh, it _is_ a beauty! I never saw such a pretty rug." Then at one o'clock the boys came home, and great were the laments that the travellers might arrive before they returned from afternoon school; but this had to be endured, and, as Alice suggested. "Perhaps, after all, they _wouldn't_." Nor did they. The boys closed up with greater speed than they had ever done before, and raced home. As they turned the corner of their street a cab was rattling along in front of them, and, half-fearing and half-hoping, they set off to outstrip it, which they managed to do, and arrived too breathless to speak, but with glowing, happy faces, in time to open the cab door, just as a shout from Minnie at the window announced the fact of the arrival to those inside the house. * * * * * "Father," said Hugh, when, late that night, after their parents had come back from visiting their grandmother next door, they all sat together round the fire, as if loth to part, "Father, would you mind telling us all, now we are together, what you said to me upstairs?"