laughter such as they had not known for years.

Upstairs in the sick room Major Lovell proved a wonderfully patient and
skillful nurse; but there were times when all his bright cheeriness
could not smooth the furrows in the invalid's brow, or take away the
fretfulness of tone.

One morning Major Lovell came down from an interview with him with a
puzzled expression of face. Catching sight of Milly in the hall,
equipped in hat and jacket, he asked,--

"Are you going out with nurse?"

"No, nurse is busy--just by my own self, in the avenue with Fritz. Do
come with me."

The major consented, but with a graver face than usual, and then
suddenly, very full of his own thoughts, said to the child,--

"I believe your uncle has something on his mind. It strikes me from
different things he has let drop that he is turning pious."

"What is pious?" inquired Milly, instantly.

"What is it? A pious person thinks every one wicked but themselves, and
condemns everybody and everything all round them. They are most
objectionable people, little woman, so mind you never take up that line,
and the worst of it is that they're so satisfied with their own
goodness, that you can't crush them, try as much as you may."

"And is Uncle Edward going to be like them?" asked the child, with a
perplexed face.

"I devoutly hope not. I shall do all in my power to prevent it."

"What do pious people do?" questioned Milly.

"Do! They give tracts away and sing hymns, and pull long faces over very
well-bound Bibles."

"I like singing hymns," asserted Milly, very emphatically; "everybody
sings hymns to God, don't they? I listen to the birds, sometimes, and
wish I could sing like them; and the trees sing, and the bees and flies.
Everything seems to sing out of doors in the summer time, but they've
nearly all dropped asleep now till next year. What hymns do you sing,
Major Lovell?"

"Bless the child! what do you take me for?" and the major laughed
heartily as he spoke; then, with a twinkle in his eye, he went on
gravely,--

"I shall begin to think that you are pious if you don't take care. What
else do you do besides sing hymns?"

"I have a Bible," said Milly, solemnly, "and I just love it."

"And what makes you love such a dry book as the Bible? You can't
understand a word of it."

"Oh, I can, Major Lovell, it's beautiful. I love nurse to read and read
it to me. It tells about Jesus, you know, and I love Jesus, and He loves
me. And it ha