and delicate, and his face, which was very
beautiful, was almost as white as marble, and would have been sad to
look upon, had it not been for a sweet lovingness about the mouth, and
a cheerful, patient spirit smiling out of the eyes.

The lady was a noble, stately person, dressed all in black, and looking
as if she had seen a great deal of sorrow. She had an anxious
expression on her face, and held the hand of the little boy tenderly
clasped in hers.

"Oh, mamma," the child suddenly exclaimed, "may I not have a ride on
that nice donkey yonder, standing by that handsome, red-cheeked boy?"

The lady sighed as she looked at Robert's robust form and blooming
face, but she answered, cheerfully:--

"Certainly, my love, you may take a little ride, if the donkey and the
boy seem trustworthy."

So Robert was called, and questioned about Billy, and answered so
frankly and modestly, that the young invalid was soon seated on
donkey-back, and gently trotting down the heath, with Robert running at
his side. He liked his attendant so well, that he soon got into
conversation with him, asked his name, and told him his own. Robert
was a little startled, when he found that his sociable new customer was
a real young nobleman--Arthur, Lord Evremond.

When they returned to the carriage, his lordship felt so much benefited
by his ride, and was so much pleased with both donkey and donkey-boy,
that he engaged their services for the next afternoon.

Lady Evremond had come up to London from her country-seat, where she
lived in great retirement, for the best medical advice for her son, who
had come home from Eton, ill, and who, young as he was, seemed
threatened with consumption. Her husband and daughter had died of that
disease, in Italy, and she had not the heart to take her Arthur away
from England to die.

The physicians gave her hope that the child would recover; he seemed
better in the air of London than on his estate, which lay low in a
little valley in Devonshire. His new exercise of donkey-riding, seemed
to benefit him greatly for awhile. Two or three times a week the
little lord drove out to Hampstead, to take his ride on the breezy
heath. He became more and more friendly and confiding with Robert,
whom he never treated as an inferior. He loved best to talk with him
about the good he meant to do if God would only make him well, and let
him grow up to be a man. He said that if he died, the title and
estates must go to