"'Oh, hush!' I whispered, 'don't let the little ones hear you say so.'

"'I don't care,' she answered, 'they've seen it often enough, and nothing matters now; here's my baby, my only boy, dying of hunger!'

"I had sat hitherto spell-bound by her words, but now I started to my feet. 'Dying!' I said, 'What can I get quickest?'

"'Nought'll save him now,' she said, without a shade of hope in her voice; 'but if you can get him a drop of milk, it would ease me to think he hadn't died hungry.'

"There was a sob now in her tearless voice; but not stopping to say a word, I hastily found the door, and descended the steps.

"You may be sure it was not long before I had got a little milk in a can from a neighbouring shop, and a bit of candle which the woman lent me at my earnest request, and I ran back with them as fast as my feet could carry me.

"Happily a match was forthcoming, and the milk was soon put to the baby's lips. He was about eight months old, but was shrunken up to skin and bone. He took with great difficulty a little of the milk, and then nestled again against his mother.

"'Why didn't you tell us?' I asked, forced to say the words.

"'I couldn't; there, I couldn't, miss. I've never begged yet, and I can't begin. I can die, and they can die, but I can't beg.'

"'Oh dear, Martha!' I said, my voice choked with tears, 'if we'd only known!'

"She wept now, hanging her head over the baby with despairing sobs.

"'But aren't you all hungry?' I said suddenly.

"She nodded her head.

"Again I flew out, leaving poor little scared Minnie sitting there; and hurrying off to a baker's, bought a stale loaf, and hastened back, ordering on my way a little coal and wood.

"In a few minutes Minnie and I had drawn the shivering little mites from their mother's knees, and had set them near the fireplace, in which I hoped there would soon be a blaze, and had given them some slices of bread, while I handed a piece to poor broken-hearted Martha.

"Then the coals came lumbering up the stairs, and, thanks to mother's teaching, Minnie and I quickly built up a warm little fire, and we had time to look round. Then our eyes fell on the parcel. We opened it with all speed, and arrayed the little cold mortals in the old clothes we had brought, and when the pudding was laid aside for another time, I drew out our third text, that it too might carry its message to these sad hearts: 'Ye know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sakes He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich.'

"'Rich!' said Martha, with a hoa.r.s.e laugh, reading the words in spite of herself with her dim eyes, as I pinned them up, 'it's little riches I shall ever see!'

"'But what about the baby? If he should die now, will he be poor then, do you think?' I asked softly.

"She moaned as she hugged him tighter. 'I love him more than anything in this world, or out of it,' she exclaimed.

"'And perhaps--oh, Martha, I don't know--but perhaps G.o.d loved you too well to let you. You would rather be rich with him there, some day, for ever, than just keep him a little while here?'

"She shook her head; but while she rocked him in her arms, her eyes were fastened on the paper before her, and her pale lips repeated, 'He became poor, He became poor, that ye through His poverty might be rich.'

"We stopped a little while longer, till we had seen the poor little dears cuddled together asleep under their mother's only remaining shawl, and with a promise of sending round the first thing in the morning, and that I thought I knew of some work which I might get for her, Minnie and I came away, too sad at heart to say a word to each other."

"But when I laid down that night in our warm snug bed, Minnie, who was awake, whispered to me softly, 'It was kind of Him to become poor for us, Agnes, wasn't it? For what comfort could we give her if He hadn't?'

"And I thought so too, and could not but thank Him over again before I slept for His love in taking our flesh and bearing our sorrows, that we might some day share His glory."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

CHAPTER XVIII.

_NEW YEAR'S EVE._

"I call it extremely selfish of you and John to have had this secret all this time, and never to have told us," said Hugh, on the morning before New Year's Day, as they all sat at breakfast.

Agnes looked up over the "cosy," a surprised hurt look overshadowing the brightness of her face.

"You do not _really_ think it unkind, Hugh?" she asked; "you are only trying to tease me."

"I'm not joking at all," answered Hugh, dropping his eyes so as not to meet her beseeching ones. "For you and John to have kept this to yourself all this time is exceedingly selfish."

"Why, _I_ didn't know," said Minnie.

"Nor I," said Alice.

"That's different!" exclaimed Hugh hastily; "you're _girls_; but I'm only two years younger than John, and I don't see any reason why you should not have told me."

"There was no reason," said Agnes gently, "except just this: Mother thought that it would be a little pleasure for New Year's Eve, and a secret that is told to everyone is no secret."

"But I might have been told; I should not have let it out like a girl."

"I dare say," said Alice, her eyes sparkling with displeasure; "and so because we are girls we are not to be trusted with anything, while because you are boys--for no other reason--you----"

She paused, Agnes's face stopped her, and then her eyes turned to John's, and she noticed that his were fixed earnestly on the text, which was just touched by the morning sunshine, as it crept silently along the wall--

"Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?"

"Oh, John," she said softly; "I quite forgot."

And then they all noticed that John had not forgotten.

At Hugh's first angry word, just as he was turning to answer, the light on the text caught his attention, and his promise to Agnes flashed across him; his promise that while their parents were away he would try with might and main to refrain from quarrelling with his brother.

There was a few moments' silence, while each of the five a.s.sembled there had time to remember their resolves, and to ask for strength to keep them.

At last Alice spoke. "Do you mind telling us. Agnes, what you are going to do then?"

"Well, you know my morning Sunday-school cla.s.s that I have given up to another teacher while mother is away?"

Alice nodded.

"Mother thought it would be nice if we asked them to tea to-day, and hoped it would keep them together better; and then John and I have been devising how we could please them."