in any way
shocking or out of tune with those feelings which the sight of a dying
Christian must be supposed to awaken. The unsuitableness in point of
natural feeling between scenes of mourning and scenes of liveliness did
not at all present itself. But I did feel that if at that moment any of
those faults had been brought before me which sometimes occur amongst
us; had I heard that any of you had been guilty of falsehood, or of
drunkenness, or of any other such sin; had I heard from any quarter the
language of profaneness, or of unkindness, or of indecency; had I heard
or seen any signs of that wretched folly which courts the laugh of
fools by affecting not to dread evil and not to care for good, then the
unsuitableness of any of these things with the scene I had just quitted
would indeed have been most intensely painful. And why? Not because such
things would really have been worse than at any other time, but because
at such a moment the eyes are opened really to know good and evil,
because we then feel what it is so to live as that death becomes an
infinite blessing, and what it is so to live also that it were good for
us if we had never been born."

Tom had gone into chapel in sickening anxiety about Arthur, but he came
out cheered and strengthened by those grand words, and walked up alone
to their study. And when he sat down and looked round, and saw Arthur's
straw hat and cricket-jacket hanging on their pegs, and marked all his
little neat arrangements, not one of which had been disturbed, the tears
indeed rolled down his cheeks; but they were calm and blessed tears, and
he repeated to himself, "Yes, Geordie's eyes are opened; he knows what
it is so to live as that death becomes an infinite blessing. But do I? O
God, can I bear to lose him?"

The week passed mournfully away. No more boys sickened, but Arthur was
reported worse each day, and his mother arrived early in the week. Tom
made many appeals to be allowed to see him, and several times tried to
get up to the sick-room; but the housekeeper was always in the way, and
at last spoke to the Doctor, who kindly but peremptorily forbade him.

Thompson was buried on the Tuesday, and the burial service, so soothing
and grand always, but beyond all words solemn when read over a boy's
grave to his companions, brought him much comfort, and many strange
new thoughts and longings. He went back to his regular life, and played
cricket and bathed as usual. It seemed to him