during the whole of the
afternoon.

At length, as the afternoon went on, I began to distinguish what tunes
were being attempted. I made out a bar or two of the old French
Republican air, 'The Marseillaise,' and then I was almost startled by
what came next, for it was a tune I had known well since I was a very
little child. It was 'Home, Sweet Home,' and that was my mother's
favourite tune; in fact, I never heard it without thinking of her. Many
and many a time had she sung me to sleep with that tune. I had scarlet
fever when I was five years old, and my mother had nursed me through it,
and when I was weary and fretful she would sing to me--my pretty
fair-haired mother. Even as I sat before my easel I could see her, as
she sat at the foot of my bed, with the sunshine streaming upon her
through the half-darkened window, and making her look, to my boyish
imagination, like a beautiful angel. And I could hear her voice still;
and the sweet tones in which she sang that very song to me, 'Home, sweet
home, there's no place like home.'

I remembered one night especially, in which she knelt by my bed and
prayed that she might meet her boy in the bright city, the sweet home
above the sky which was the best and brightest home of all. I wonder
what she would think of me now, I said to myself, and whether she ever
will see me there. I very much doubt it; it seems to me that I am a long
way off from Home, Sweet Home now.

My mother had died soon after that illness of mine, and I knew that she
had gone to live in that beautiful home of which she had so often spoken
to me. And I had been left behind, and my aunt, who had brought me up,
had cared for none of these things, and I had learnt to look at the
world and at life from her worldly standpoint, and had forgotten to seek
first the Kingdom of God. Oh! if my mother only knew, my pretty,
beautiful mother, I said to myself that day. And then there came the
thought, perhaps she _does_ know, and the thought made me very
uncomfortable. I wished, more than ever, that that cracked old
instrument, whatever it was, would stop.

But, in spite of all my wishes, the strange sound went on, and again and
again I had to listen to 'Home, Sweet Home,' and each time that it came
it set my memory going, and brought back to me the words and the looks
which I thought I had forgotten. And it set something else going
too--the still, small voice within, accusing me of forgetfulness, not so
much of my mot