she paused a moment as she wished him good-night.

"Uncle Edward, when you say your prayers to-night, will you ask God to make Tommy come back home? His mother does want him so badly."

"I will leave you to do that," was the curt reply.

"Well, if you don't want to pray for Tommy, pray for God's probable sons, won't you? Do, Uncle Edward. Mrs. Maxwell said the only thing that comforted her is asking God to bring Tommy back."

Sir Edward made no reply, only dismissed her more peremptorily than usual, and when she had left the room he leaned his arms on the chimney piece, and resting his head on them, gazed silently into the fire with a knitted brow. His thoughts did not soothe him, for he presently raised his head with a short laugh, saying to himself,—

"Where is my cigar-case? I will go and have a smoke to get rid of this fit of the blues. I shall have to curb that child's tongue a little. She is getting too troublesome."

And while he was pacing moodily up and down the terrace outside, a little white-robed figure, with bent head and closed eyes, was saying softly and reverently as she knelt at her nurse's knee—

"And, O God, bring Tommy back, and don't let him be a probable son any more. Bring him home very soon, please, and will you bring back all your probable sons who are running away from you, for Jesus Christ's sake. Amen."

Sir Edward did not escape several visits from ladies in the neighborhood offering to befriend his little niece, but all these overtures were courteously and firmly rejected. He told them the child was happy with her nurse, he did not wish her to mix with other children at present, and a year or two hence would be quite time enough to think about her education. So Milly was left alone, more than one mother remarking with a shake of the head—

"It's a sad life for a child, but Sir Edward is peculiar, and when he gets a notion into his head he keeps to it."

The child was not unhappy, and when the days grew shorter, and her rambles out of doors were curtailed, she would lie on the tiger-skin by the hall fire with Fritz for the hour together, pouring out to him all her childish confidences.

Sometimes her uncle would find her perched on the broad window-seat half-way up the staircase, with her little face pressed against the windowpanes, and late on one very cold afternoon in November he remonstrated with her.

"It is too cold for you here, Millicent," he said sternly; "you ought to be in the nursery."

"I don't feel cold," she replied. "I don't like being in the nursery all day; and when it gets dark, nurse will have the lamp lit and the curtains drawn, and then there are only the walls and ceiling and the pictures to look at. I'm tired of them; I see them every day."

"And what do you see here?" asked Sir Edward.

"You come and sit down, and I will tell you. There's room, uncle; make Fritz move a little. Now, you look out with me. I can see such a lot from this window. I like looking out right into the world; don't you?"

"Are we not in the world? I thought we were."

"I s'pose we are, but I mean God's world. The insides of houses aren't His world, are they? Do you see my trees? I can see Goliath from this window; he looks very fierce to-night; he has lost all his leaves, and I can almost hear him muttering to himself. And then, uncle, do you see those nice thin trees cuddling each other? I call those David and Jon'than; they're just kissing each other, like they did in the wood, you know. Do you remember? And there's my beech-tree over there, where I sit when I'm the probable son. It's too dark for you to see all the others. I have names for them all nearly, but I like to come and watch them, and then I see the stars just beginning to come out. Do you know what I think about the stars? They're angels' eyes, and they look down and blink at me so kindly, and then I look up and blink back. We go on blinking at each other sometimes till I get quite sleepy. I watch the birds going to bed too. There is so much I can see from this window."

"Well, run along to the nursery now; you have been here long enough."

Milly jumped down from her seat obediently; then catching hold of her uncle's hand as he was moving away, she said,—

"Just one thing more I want to show you, uncle. I can see the high-road for such a long way over there, and when it is not quite so dark I sit and watch for Tommy—that's Maxwell's probable son, you know. I should be so glad if I were to see him coming along one day with his head hanging down, and all ragged and torn. He is sure to come some day—God will bring him—and if I see him coming first, I shall run off quick to Maxwell and tell him, and then he will run out to meet him. Won't it be lovely?"

And with shining eyes Milly shook back her brown curls and looked up into her uncle's face for sympathy. He patted her head, the nearest approach to a caress that he ever gave her, and left her without saying a word.

Another day, later still, he came upon her at the staircase window. He was dining out that night, and was just leaving the house, but stopped as he noticed his little niece earnestly waving her handkerchief up at the window.

"What are you doing now?" he inquired as he passed down the stairs. Milly turned round, her little face flushed, and eyes looking very sweet and serious.

"I was just waving to God, Uncle Edward. I thought I saw Him looking down at me from the sky."

Sir Edward passed on, muttering inaudibly,—

"I believe that child lives in the presence of God from morning to night".

CHAPTER V.