ld want nobody else to stay with him in the morning.

Very glad he was that his mother would not be kept from Ellen's first
Holy Communion. Owing to the Curate not being a priest, the Feast had
not been celebrated since Michaelmas; but a clergyman had come to help
Mr. Cope, that the parish might not be deprived of the Festival on such a
day as Christmas.

Harold, though in a much better mood than at the Confirmation time, was
not as much concerned to miss it as perhaps he ought to have been.
Thought had not come to him yet, and his head was full of the dinner with
the servants at the Grange. It was sad that he and Ellen should alone be
able to go to it; but it would be famous for all that! Ay, and so were
the young postman's Christmas-boxes!

So Paul and Alfred were left together, and held their tongues for full
five minutes, because both felt so odd. Then Alfred said something about
reading the Service, and Paul offered to read it to him.

Paul had not only been very well taught, but had a certain gift, such as
not many people have, for reading aloud well. Alfred listened to those
Psalms and Lessons as if they had quite a new meaning in them, for the
right sound and stress on the right words made them sound quite like
another thing; and so Alfred said when he left off.

'I'm sure they do to me,' said Paul. 'I didn't know much about "good-
will to men" last Christmas.'

'You've not had overmuch good-will from them, neither,' said Alfred,
'since you came out.'

'What! not since I've been at Friarswood?' exclaimed Paul. 'Why, I used
to think all _that_ was only something in a book.'

'All what?' asked Alfred.

'All about--why, loving one's neighbour--and the Good Samaritan, and so
on. I never saw any one do it, you know, but it was comfortable like to
read about it; and when I watched to your mother and all of you, I saw
how it was about one's neighbour; and then, what with that and Mr. Cope's
teaching, I got to feel how it was--about God!' and Paul's face looked
very grave and peaceful.

'Well,' said Alfred, 'I don't know as I ever cared about it much--not
since I was a little boy. It was the fun last Christmas.'

And Paul looking curious, Alfred told all about the going out for holly,
and the dining at the Grange, and the snap-dragon over the pudding, till
he grew so eager and animated that he lost breath, and his painful cough
came on, so that he could just whisper, 'What did you do?'

'Oh! I do