to do, must show her what he had acquired and must explain
to her what he had lost, must go to her when he was hurt and when he was
frightened and when he was glad... And of all these things he had never
even thought until now.

As he sat there the house seemed to grow ever quieter and quieter
about him. He felt as though he would have liked to have gone to the
schoolroom door and listened. It was terrible imagining the house behind
the door--quite silent--so that the clocks had stopped, and no one
walked upon the stairs and no one laughed down in the pantry. He wished
that they would make more noise in the schoolroom. He upset the church
and the orchard and Mrs. Noah.

But the silence after the noise was worse than ever.

Soon Miss Jones took the two girls away to her room to fit on some
clothes, an operation which Helen adored and Mary hated. Jeremy was left
alone, and he was, at once, terribly frightened. He knew that it was of
no use to be frightened, and he tried to go on with his game, putting
the church with the apple trees around it and the Noah family all
sleeping under the trees, but at every moment something compelled him to
raise his head and see that no one was there, and he felt so small and
so lonely that he would like to have hidden under something.

Then when he thought of his mother all alone and the house so quiet
around her and no one able to go to her he felt so miserable that he
turned round from his village and stared desolately into the
fireplace. The thought of his new sister came to him, but was dismissed
impatiently. He did not want a new sister--Mary and Helen were trouble
enough as it was--and he felt, with an old weary air, that it was time,
indeed, that he was off to school. Nothing was the same. Always new
people. Never any peace.

He was startled by the sound of the opening door, and, turning, saw his
father. His father and he were never very easy together. Mr. Cole had
very little time for the individual, being engaged in saving souls in
the mass, and his cheery, good-tempered Christianity had a strange,
startling fashion of proving unavailing before some single human case.

He did not understand children except when they were placed in masses
before him. His own children, having been named, on their arrival,
"Gifts from God," had kept much of that incorporeal atmosphere
throughout their growing years.

But to-night he was a different man. As he looked at his small son
across t