But thank God it is only _seems_, not _is_. He is unchangeable, and unaffected by our changeability. Hidden, it may be, by the cloud we have ourselves raised, the dark cloud of hopelessness, He is still there, the Same whose presence we realise so fully in happier moments. "He," says a writer of the present century, "is immutable, unchangeable, while we are different every hour. What He is in Himself, the great unalterable I Am, not what we in this or that moment feel Him to be, _that_ is our hope." The comfort, then, for us and for the stricken child is, that though we may not at such times do our part, He is ever ready to do His; and it would almost seem as if He were providing for this state of feeling when he says, "_Before_ they call, I will answer." But what _could_ be done for the child in the terrible hour of his trouble? _We_ know not, but God knew. The little heart was open before Him, and He knew that his sorrow would flee at morning light, and that he only wanted comfort for the present moment. So, looking pityingly down upon the lonely child, He sent him the only thing that could help him--laid gently upon his heavy eyelids the only gift that could do him any good--giving him the peace of unconsciousness till the hour of sorrow and sighing should pass away! There one of the maids found him an hour or so later, and carried him up to bed without waking him. CHAPTER X. Humphrey slept late the next morning, and the sun was streaming on his face when he awoke. He sprang out of bed with an exclamation of delight at seeing such a fine day, and then started back in surprise at finding himself in a strange room. Recollections of last night were beginning to steal over him, when the door opened, and Jane came in. "At last! Master Humphrey. Why I thought you were never going to wake up! Master Miles has been asking for you for ever so long!" "Then he's better, is he?" said Humphrey, eagerly. "Better!" exclaimed Jane, in a sprightly tone; "why bless you, he's quite well." Jane had been the one to find Humphrey in the drawing-room the night before, and had guessed by his tear-stained face how it had been. She was not equivocating; Miles had taken a turn for the better in the night, and there was no further anxiety about him. Humphrey's spirits rose immediately to their usual height; he dressed himself in a great hurry, and soon the two little brothers were together again. Humphrey did not allude to his troubles of the evening before. Perhaps he had already forgotten them; or if they did recur to his memory, it was with a dull, dead sense of pain which he had no wish to call into life again. His was a nature that was only too glad to escape from such recollections. His buoyant spirits and volatile disposition helped him to throw off sad memories, and never had he been gayer or wilder than on this morning, as he laughed and talked, and played by his brother's bedside.