It is my custom every night, after the children are snug in their nests and the gas is turned down, to sit on the side of the bed and chat with them five or ten minutes. If anything has gone wrong through the day, it is never alluded to at this time. None but the most agreeable topics are discussed. I make it a point that the boys shall go to sleep with untroubled hearts. When our chat is ended, they say their prayers. Now, among the pleas which they offer up for the several members of the family, they frequently intrude the claims of rather curious objects for Divine compassion. Sometimes it is the rocking-horse that has broken a leg, sometimes it is Shem or Japhet, who has lost an arm in disembarking from Noah's ark; Pinky and Inky, the kittens, and Bob, the dog, are never forgotten. So it did not surprise me at all this Saturday night when both boys prayed God to watch over and bless the little violinist. The next morning at the breakfast-table, when I unfolded the newspaper, the first paragraph my eyes fell upon was this:-- "James Speaight, the infant violinist, died in this city late on Saturday night. At the _matinee_ of the 'Naiad Queen' on the afternoon of that day, when little James Speaight came off the stage, after giving his usual violin performance, Mr. Shewell {1} noticed that he appeared fatigued, and asked if he felt ill. He replied that he had a pain in his heart, and then Mr. Shewell suggested that he remain away from the evening performance. He retired quite early, and about midnight his father heard him say, '_Gracious God, make room for another little child in Heaven._' No sound was heard after this, and his father spoke to him soon afterwards; he received no answer, but found his child dead." 1 The stage-manager. The printed letters grew dim and melted into each other, as I tried to re-read them. I glanced across the table at Charley and Talbot eating their breakfast, with the slanted sunlight from the window turning their curls into real gold, and I had not the heart to tell them what had happened. Of all the prayers that floated up to heaven, that Saturday night, from the bedsides of sorrowful men and women, or from the cots of innocent children, what accents could have fallen more piteously and tenderly upon the ear of a listening angel than the prayer of little James Speaight! He knew he was dying. The faith he had learned, perhaps while running at his mother's side, in some green English lane, came to him then. He remembered it was Christ who said, "Suffer the little children to come unto me;" and the beautiful prayer rose to his lips, "Gracious God, make room for another little child in Heaven."