r, looked in at
the door and said, "Master Earle is wanted in the doctor's room," the
boys all wondered, and Charlie's neighbor whispered to him, "Whatever
can he want you for, Earle?" The doctor's tale was soon told, and it
was one which sent Charlie back to the school-room with a very
different face to the one with which he had left it. A letter had come
to Doctor West from Charlie's father, and in it a note from his mother
to Charlie himself, written the night before, and saying that a
summons had come that very morning calling them to Charlie's
grandmother, who was very ill, and that they were starting for
Scotland that night and would be almost at their journey's end when
Charlie got the news. The note said that Laura, Charlie's sister,
would go with them, but that they could not wait for Charlie himself,
so they had written to Mrs. Lamb, Charlie's old nurse, who lived about
ten miles from Dr. West's, and had asked her to take charge of him for
a day or two, till more was known of his grandmother's state and some
better plan could be made for him. It was sad enough for Charlie to
hear of the illness of his kind old grandmother--sad enough to see the
merry start of the other boys, while he had to stay behind; but to
have to think of Christmas day spent away from father and mother, away
from Laura and home, was excuse enough for a few bitter tears. But
unpleasant things come to an end as well as pleasant ones, and
Charlie's lonely waiting in the school-room came to its end, and he
found himself that afternoon snugly packed into the Blackridge coach,
and forgetting his own troubles in listening to the cheery chatter of
the other passengers, and in looking at what was to be seen as the
coach rolled briskly along the snow-covered road. It was quite dark
when they reached Blackridge, and Charlie looked out at the people
gathered round the door of the "Packhorse Inn," and a sudden fear
filled his mind lest there should be no one there to meet him; but he
soon saw by the light at the inn door Nurse Lamb herself, with her
kind face looking so beaming that it seemed a little bit like _really_
going home.

"Here, father," said Nurse Lamb to her jolly-looking husband; "here's
Master Charlie, safe and sound! You bring the luggage in the barrow
while I take him home quick, for I am sure he must be cold."

And so nurse bustled Charlie off down a lane and across a meadow, till
they came to a wicket-gate, beyond which stood the b