ous to take a very good place at the next examinations,
for he was getting on for twelve, and "some day" he knew that he would
have to go out into the world as it were, on his own account--to go
away, that is to say, to a big boarding-school, as Percy had done before
him.

He did work well, and he was rewarded, and this Christmas was a _very_
happy one. There was plenty of skating, and Ted got on famously. Indeed,
he learnt to be so clever at it, that Cissy used to feel quite proud,
when people admired him for it, to think that he was her brother, though
Ted himself took it quite simply. Skating was to him the greatest
pleasure he knew. To feel oneself skimming along by one's own will, and
yet with a power beyond oneself, was delightful past words.

"I do think," thought Ted to himself, one clear bright frosty day, when
the sky was as blue, _almost_, as in summer, "I do think it's as nice as
flying."

And then looking up, as he skimmed along, at the beautiful sky which
winter or summer he loved so much, there came over him that same strange
sweet _wonder_--the questioning he could not have put into words, as to
whether the Heaven he often thought of in his dreamy childish way, was
really up there, and what it was like, and what they did there. It must
be happy and bright--happier and brighter even than down here, because
_there_, in some way that Ted knew that neither he nor the wisest of
mankind could explain, one would be nearer God. But yet it was difficult
to understand how it could be much brighter and happier than this happy
life down below. There was no good trying to understand, Ted decided.
_God_ understood, and that was enough. And as He had made us so happy
here, He might be trusted to know what was best for us there. Only--yes,
that _was_ the greatest puzzle of all, far more puzzling than anything
else--_everybody_ was not happy here--alas! no, Ted knew enough to know
that--many, many were not happy; many, many were not good, and had never
even had a chance of becoming so. Ah, that _was_ a puzzle!

"When I'm a man," thought Ted--and it was a thought that came to him
often--"I'll try to do something for those poor boys in London."

For nothing had made more impression on Ted, during his stay in London,
than the sight of the so-called "City Arabs," and all he had heard about
them. He had even written a story on the subject, taking for his hero a
certain "Tom," whose adventures and misadventures were most t