Gabriel-Ernest, but the
latter's discarded garments were found lying in the road so it was
assumed that the child had fallen into the water, and that the boy had
stripped and jumped in, in a vain endeavour to save it. Van Cheele and
some workmen who were near by at the time testified to having heard a
child scream loudly just near the spot where the clothes were found.
Mrs. Toop, who had eleven other children, was decently resigned to her
bereavement, but Miss Van Cheele sincerely mourned her lost foundling.
It was on her initiative that a memorial brass was put up in the parish
church to "Gabriel-Ernest, an unknown boy, who bravely sacrificed his
life for another."

Van Cheele gave way to his aunt in most things, but he flatly refused to
subscribe to the Gabriel-Ernest memorial.

THE SAINT AND THE GOBLIN

The little stone Saint occupied a retired niche in a side aisle of the
old cathedral. No one quite remembered who he had been, but that in a
way was a guarantee of respectability. At least so the Goblin said. The
Goblin was a very fine specimen of quaint stone carving, and lived up in
the corbel on the wall opposite the niche of the little Saint. He was
connected with some of the best cathedral folk, such as the queer
carvings in the choir stalls and chancel screen, and even the gargoyles
high up on the roof. All the fantastic beasts and manikins that sprawled
and twisted in wood or stone or lead overhead in the arches or away down
in the crypt were in some way akin to him; consequently he was a person
of recognised importance in the cathedral world.

The little stone Saint and the Goblin got on very well together, though
they looked at most things from different points of view. The Saint was
a philanthropist in an old fashioned way; he thought the world, as he saw
it, was good, but might be improved. In particular he pitied the church
mice, who were miserably poor. The Goblin, on the other hand, was of
opinion that the world, as he knew it, was bad, but had better be let
alone. It was the function of the church mice to be poor.

"All the same," said the Saint, "I feel very sorry for them."

"Of course you do," said the Goblin; "it's _your_ function to feel sorry
for them. If they were to leave off being poor you couldn't fulfil your
functions. You'd be a sinecure."

He rather hoped that the Saint would ask him what a sinecure meant, but
the latter took refuge in a stony silence. The Gobli