For two hours each evening Mr. Miller’s house and garden were open to them, and for the first hour he gave them something to do with their bodies—gardening, or quoits, or football, or cricket—and for the second he was at their service to tell them tales or read to them, or take walks with them, or anything else they pleased. Before they had been a week with him they all loved him, and would have done anything or given up anything for him. And he loved them greatly. He believed that every boy had the making of a hero in him, and he sought to find out how to develop the best of his nature and his powers. He liked to set the eleven to some work or play which they liked, and take the twelfth away where the two could talk confidentially to each other. The boy would pour out his very soul to his friend, telling him his ambitions, his troubles, his sins, and his hopes, as he had never told any one before. And what wise counsel he received in return, what good words to be treasured in the boy’s heart even after he became a man, no one knew but God, not even the man or the boy himself. Mr. Harris was always very tired after the boys had gone. It was really a bit of his very life that he gave them. If the heart be not put into work of this kind very little is accomplished; but if it be heart work it can only be done at great personal cost to the worker. But he was always very happy, too, and had usually something to tell Margaret which she was glad to hear. One evening Mr. Harris was walking over the fields with a lad called Dick Nelson, a bright, mischievous boy, “worth saving at any price,” Harris said to himself, when a question was put to him of a more direct character than any which he had ever before been called to answer. They were talking about men who had made England, especially the warriors and the statesmen, and at length they mentioned General Gordon. “He would have done more lasting work if he had been less general and more Gordon,” said Harris. “He was a very fine man, but I have always wished that he had not been a soldier. You know, Dick, that is one of my fads. I don’t like war, but I like Gordon; he was a splendid Christian fellow, true as steel.” “You don’t like him any better because he was a Christian, though, Mr. Harris, do you?” asked the boy, looking curiously into the grey eyes beneath the shaggy brows. “Don’t I? Indeed, I do,” said Harris, with a kindly smile.