n this because, should you
think well to tell Reginald of it, I believe there would not be much
difficulty in his getting the post. But you will hear about this from
my brother-in-law, whom I have asked to write to you. I don't expect to
get leave again, for eighteen months; but I hope then to find you all
well.

"Believe me, dear Mrs Cruden,--

"Yours truly,--

"Thomas Lambert."

This simple warm-hearted letter came to Mrs Cruden as the first gleam
of better things on the troubled waters of her life. Things were just
then at their worst. Reginald lost, Horace away in search of him,
herself slowly recovering from a sad illness into a still more sad life,
with little prospect either of happiness or competency, nothing to look
forward to but a renewal of the old struggles, possibly single-handed.
At such a time Major Lambert's letter came to revive her drooping
spirits and remind her of a Providence that never sleeps less than when
we are ready to consider ourselves forgotten.

All she could do was to write a grateful reply back, and then await news
from Horace, trusting meanwhile it would not be necessary to draw on the
major's offered help. A few days later Horace was home again, jubilant
at having found his brother, but anxious both as to his immediate
recovery and the state of mind in which restored health would find him.

"He told me lots about the past, mother," said he. "No one can conceive
what a terrible three months he has had since he left us, or how
heroically he has borne it. He doesn't think so himself, and is awfully
depressed about his trial and the way in which the magistrate spoke to
him--the brute!"

"Poor boy! he is the very last to bear that sort of thing well."

"He's got a sort of idea he's a branded man, and is to be dragged down
all his life by it. Perhaps when he hears that an old friend like Major
Lambert believes in him, he may pick up. You know, mother, I believe
his heart is in the grave where that little office-boy of his lies, and
that he would have been thankful if--well, perhaps not so bad as that--
but just at present he can't speak or even think of the boy without
breaking down."

"According to the letter from Major Lambert's brother-in-law, the post
that is offered him is one he will like, I think," said Mrs Cruden. "I
do hope he will take it. To have nothing to do would be the worst thing
that could happen to him."

"To say nothing of the necessity of it for yo