ed."

"I'm so glad," said Eric. "Come in with me and tell them. I'm
head-remove, mother," he shouted, springing into the parlour where his
father and mother sat.

In the lively joy that this announcement excited, Russell stood by for
the moment unheeded; and when Eric took him by the hand to tell them
that he was third, he hung his head, and a tear was in his eye.

"Poor boy! I'm afraid you're disappointed," said Mrs Williams kindly,
drawing him to her side.

"Oh, no, no! it's not _that_," said Russell hastily, as he lifted his
swimming eyes to her face.

"What's the matter, Russell?" asked Eric, surprised.

"Oh, nothing; don't ask me; I'm only foolish to-day," and with a burst
of sorrow he bent down, and hid his face. Mrs Williams guessed the
source of his anguish, and soothed him tenderly; nor was she surprised
when, as soon as his sobs would let him speak, he kissed her hand, and
whispered in a low tone, "It is but a year since I became an orphan."

"Dearest child," she said, "I know how to sympathise with you. But I am
sure, my boy, that you have learnt to feel Who is the Father of the
fatherless."

Russell's eye brightened, but his only answer was a look of intelligence
and gratitude, as he hastily dried his tears.

Gradually he grew calmer. They made him stay to dinner and spend the
rest of the day there, and by the evening he had recovered all his usual
sprightliness. Towards sunset he and Eric went for a stroll down the
bay, and talked over the term and the examination.

They sat down on a green bank just beyond the beach, and watched the
tide come in, while the sea-distance was crimson with the glory of
evening. The beauty and the murmur filled them with a quiet happiness,
not untinged with the melancholy thought of parting the next day.

At last Eric broke the silence. "Russell, let me always call you Edwin,
and call me Eric."

"Very gladly, Eric. Your coming here has made me so happy." And the
two boys squeezed each other's hands, and looked into each other's
faces, and silently promised that they would be loving friends for ever.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FIVE.

THE SECOND TERM.

Take us the foxes, the little foxes that spoil our vines; for our
vines have tender grapes.--Cant. ii. 15.

The second term at school is generally the great test of the strength of
a boy's principles and resolutions. During the first term the novelty,
the loneliness, the dread of unknown punishment