zed Walter's hand tight, and sobbed his thanks, while Walter
gently smoothed the child's pillow and dried his tears.

Poor Eden! as I said before, he was too weak, too delicate, too tenderly
nurtured, and far, far too young for the battle of life in a public
school. For even at Saint Winifred's, as there are and must be at all
great schools, there were some black sheep in the flock undiscovered,
and therefore unseparated from the rest.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

MY BROTHER'S KEEPER.

"'Tis in ourselves that we are thus or thus.
Our bodies are gardens to the which our wills are gardeners."

Othello, Act One Scene 3.

As Walter lay awake for a few quiet moments before he sent his thoughts
to rest, he glanced critically, like an Indian gymnosophist, over the
occurrences of the day. He could not but rejoice that the last person
for whom he felt real regard had forgiven him his rash act, and that his
offence had thus finally been absolved on earth as in heaven. He
rejoiced, too, that Mr Percival's kind permission to learn his lessons
in his room would give him far greater advantages and opportunities than
he had hitherto enjoyed. Yet Walter's conscience was not quite at ease.
The last scene had disturbed him. The sobs and shiverings of little
Eden had fallen very reproachfully into his heart. Walter felt that he
might have done far more for him than he had done. He had, indeed, even
throughout his own absorbing troubles, extended to the child a general
protection, but not a special care. It never occurred to him to excuse
himself with the thought that he was "not his brother's keeper." The
truth was that he had found Eden uninteresting, because he had not taken
the pains to be interested in him, and while one voice within his heart
reproved him of neglect and selfishness, another voice seemed to say to
him, in a firm yet kindlier tone, "Now that thou are converted,
strengthen thy brethren."

For indeed as yet Eden's had been a very unhappy lot. Bullied, teased,
and persecuted by the few among whom accident had first thrown him, and
judged to belong to their set by others who on that account considered
him a boy of a bad sort, he was almost friendless at Saint Winifred's.
And the loneliness, the despair of this feeling, weighing upon his
heart, robbed him of all courage to face the difficulties of work, so
that in school as well as out of it, he was always in trouble. He was
for ever clumsily scrawling in