nds may see you if you like, provided you don't
excite yourself too much. I trust that you will get better now."

So Eric and Montagu were told by Dr Rowlands that at six they might go
and see their friend. "Be sure," he added, "that you don't startle or
excite him."

They promised, and after school on that beautiful evening of early
summer they went to the sick-room door. Stopping, they held their
breath, and knocked very gently. Yes! it was the well-known voice which
gave the answer, but it was faint and low. Full of awe, they softly
opened the door, which admitted them into the presence of the dear
companion whom they had not seen for so long. Since then it seemed as
though gulfs far deeper than the sea had been flowing between him and
them.

Full of awe, and hand in hand, they entered the room on tiptoe--the
darkened room where Russell was. What a hush and oppression there
seemed to them at first in the dim, silent chamber; what an awfulness in
all the appliances which showed how long and deeply their schoolfellow
had suffered. But all this vanished directly they caught sight of his
face. There he lay, so calm, and weak, and still, with his bright,
earnest eyes turned towards them as though to see whether any of their
affection for him had ceased or been forgotten!

In an instant they were kneeling in silence by the bed with bowed
foreheads; and the sick boy tenderly put his hands on their heads, and
pushed his thin white fingers through their hair, and looked at them
tearfully without a word, till they hid their faces with their hands,
and broke into deep suppressed sobs of compassion.

"Oh, hush, hush!" he said, as he felt their tears dropping on his hands;
"dear Eric, dear Monty, why should you cry so for me? I am very happy."

But they caught the outline of his form as he lay on the bed, and had
now for the first time realised that he was a cripple for life; and as
the throng of memories came on them--memories of his skill and fame at
cricket, and racquets, and football--of their sunny bathes together in
sea and river, and all their happy holiday wanderings--they could not
restrain their emotion, and wept uncontrollably. Neither of them could
speak a word, or break the holy silence; and as he patted their heads
and cheeks, his own tears flowed fast in sympathy and self-pity. But he
felt the comforting affection which they could not utter; he felt it in
his loneliness, and it did him good.

Th