were wretched, and several were weeping bitterly. No light from the golden city seemed to fall upon them, and Bobby noticed, through the darkness that seemed all round them, that their feet were close to the edge of a precipice.

As he looked at them the tears came into his eyes; and when he heard Nurse's voice call to him he started violently. He could hardly believe he was in the library, and was going up to his sunny nursery. He had been in the picture for such a long time, and so very far away.

Very carefully he put the Bible back in its place and ran out of the room.

'Nurse,' he said a little later, as he was eating his dinner in the nursery, 'do you know a story in the Bible about some big lovely gates, and angels, and a street all gold, and trees with gold apples, and lovely flowers, and everybody smiling, and then, outside the gates, some poor, unhappy crying people being shut out in the dark and rain? It's rather near the end of the book.'

'Oh, I expect it's a picture of heaven,' said Nurse, 'and the wicked people being shut out.'

'But,' said Bobby, with anxious eyes, 'are many bodies shut outside of heaven? Can't they never get in?'

'Now, eat your dinner and don't talk so much! There are no wicked people in heaven. It is only good little boys who go there.'

An awful fear clutched at Bobby's heart, but he could not put it into words. He had taken it for granted that everybody who died went straight to heaven. The picture of those weeping men and women outside the gates, and the sad stern face of the angel who was shutting them out, haunted him. He was very quiet indeed; and when Nurse took him off to church a little later, he never spoke a word. They walked along the high-road for a short distance, then turned up a lane with high banks and hedges, and at last came to the little country church, with some shady elms and beeches casting cool shadows across the sunny churchyard. It was a children's service, and the Sunday-school children were filing in before them. Bobby followed his nurse up to his grandmother's pew. It was very near the pulpit, and when sitting down Bobby could not see over the top of it. He was not very fond of church. It was a long time to sit still, and Nurse would not let him talk to Nobbles. In fact she had threatened more than once to leave Nobbles behind when they went to church if he persisted in playing with him.

To-day Bobby was pleased by hearing one of his hymns sung that he knew by heart, and when the clergyman began to talk in the pulpit of this very hymn he could not help listening.

There's a Friend for little children
Above the bright blue sky,'

said the clergyman. 'Now I am going to talk to you about seven things you have above the sky. Will you say them after me? A Friend, a rest, a home, a crown, a song, a robe, and a harp with palms of victory.' Bobby's attention was fixed for a time as the clergyman spoke of these one by one. He described heaven with all its glories, and Bobby nodded his head as he listened.

'Me and you have seen it, Nobbles,' he whispered. 'We sawed it in the picsher.'

When the robe and harp were described Bobby drew a long breath of delight. It seemed all so certain that he was going to be inside the gates one day. He went into dreams after that, and then started in his seat as he heard the very solemn closing words of the sermon: 'So remember, dear children, you must have your white robe on before you enter those golden gates, or they will close upon you, and you will be left outside.'

Poor Bobby thought and thought of these words as he trotted home with Nurse; but he felt that if he asked for them to be explained Nurse would only tell him to be quiet.

When he was in bed that night he confided his fears to Nobbles.

'Me and you may be shut outside, like those peoples, if we don't have those white gowns. How can I get one, Nobbles, dear? I wonder if my father would give me one! And I wonder if you can buy them, and wheres they comes from!'

Tired out with such conjectures, he fell asleep.

Chapter IV.

HIS NEW FRIEND.

It was four o'clock, and Bobby was sitting out upon the lawn with his new friend, Lady Isobel. His grandmother at first told Nurse that she considered him too small to accept such an invitation; but Nurse for once spoke up for him, and said she thought it would do him no harm. It appeared she knew Lady Isobel's housekeeper, and was not sorry to have an excuse for taking tea with her. So Bobby and Nobbles, with smiling faces, presented themselves at the appointed time, and Lady Isobel greeted the small boy most affectionately, Nurse went off to the house, and then he lost all shyness, and was soon the greatest friends with the sad-faced woman. It was not very long before he told her of the beautiful picture he had seen.

'I wish I could read about it,' he lamented, 'but it's in a far away lang'age, Nurse says.'

'But if it is the Bible your nurse could read it to you.'

'No, it's a diffent Bible.'

He described the cover to her and the pictures. Lady Isobel seemed quite interested.

'I should like to see it,' she said. 'It must be a very valuable one, Bobby. I expect some old monks must have painted the pictures in it. I had a prayer-book once illuminated by them. They had plenty of time in those days to give to painting, and they did it beautifully.'

'What's a monk?' asked Bobby.

'A man with a bald head in a gown, who lives in a house away from the world, and makes it his business to be good.'

'In a gown?' repeated Bobby. 'A white one? Me and Nobbles want to know about white gowns, acause you can't get inside the gates if you haven't got one on, and'—his lips quivered—'I don't want to be shut out, I reely don't!'

'I'm sure you needn't be afraid of that,' said Lady Isobel, smiling, though she sighed at the same time. 'I have always been told that it is people's own fault if they are left outside.'

'I want to be certain sure I'll get inside the gates,' repeated Bobby, distress in his brown eyes. 'Me and Nobbles means to be there. I finks my father will help me get in.'

'I'm sure he will,' said Lady Isobel, cheerfully. 'Now would you like to come round my garden with me? Shall we pick some flowers for your nursery? Do you like flowers?'

Bobby assented eagerly.

'The House has a good many,' he said, 'but me and Nobbles never has none 'cept the daisies, and Tom always cuts them off d'reckly they comes up.'

He trotted after her along a gravel path that was edged by thick borders of flowers; roses climbed over arches across their heads. A smile came over his face as he gazed at the flowers to the right and left of him.

'Nobbles is rather naughty, sometimes,' he said, looking up into Lady Isobel's face with twinkling eyes. 'He does love to cut off flowers' heads, and I can't stop him. He cutted off 'bout a hundred dandelions one day in the orchard, he would do it, and when I looked at them their necks were bleeding white milk, and I picked up all the heads, and I made Nobbles dig and dig their graves, and we buried them all.'

Lady Isobel tried to look shocked.

Bobby had a bewitching smile, and twinkles of humour all over his face when he was giving free play to his imagination. He continued with a slow shake of his head as he looked down upon Nobbles meditatively.

'I tells him he mustn't be so fond of cutting off people's heads. You see he loves fighting. He's been a soger over the sea. He went into battle and cut off twenty fousand en'mies one day!'

Bobby stole a look up through his long lashes at Lady Isobel to see how she took this. Then he gained courage, and proceeded:

'Nobbles tells me I needn't never be 'fraid of lions or tigers or village boys, for he'd whack them all round, and the cocks and hens all rush away when