e, and of the possible adventures that might await
them there, had charms for him, as for every one of his age and spirit.
But he was a sensible lad, and realised in some measure the advantage of
such an education as could only be secured by remaining behind, and he
knew in his heart that there was reason in what his father had said to
him of the danger there was that the voyage and the new scenes in a
strange land might unsettle his mind from his books. It cost him
something to seem content, even while his father was speaking to him,
and he knew well it would grieve the rest to know he was to be left
behind, so he would say nothing about it, on this first night of his
home-coming.

There was one sad face among them; for even Arthur's home-coming could
not quite chase the shadow that had fallen on Graeme since the night a
year ago while she sat dreaming her dreams in the firelight. It was
only a year or little more, but it might have been three, judging from
the change in her. She was taller and paler, and older-looking since
then. And yet it was not so much that as something else that so changed
her, Arthur thought, as he sat watching her. The change had come to her
through their great loss, he knew; but he could not have understood,
even if it had been told him, how much this had changed life to Graeme.
He had suffered too more than words could ever tell. Many a time his
heart had been ready to burst with unspeakable longing for his dead
mother's loving presence, her voice, her smile, her gentle chiding, till
he could only cast himself down and weep vain tears upon the ground.

Graeme had borne all this, and what was worse to her, the hourly missing
of her mother's counsel and care. Not one day of all the year but she
had been made to feel the bitterness of their loss; not one day but she
had striven to fill her mother's place to her father and them all, and
her nightly heartbreak had been to know that she had striven in vain.
"As how could it be otherwise than vain," she said often to herself, "so
weak, so foolish, so impatient." And yet through all her weakness and
impatience, she knew that she must never cease to try to fill her
mother's place still.

Some thought of all this came into Arthur's mind, as she sat there
leaning her head on one hand, while the other touched from time to time
the cradle at her side. Never before had he realised how sad it was for
them all that they had lost their mother, and