lost many little companions in this way, not when they were quite babies, but just after they began to run about and to grow amusing. There were none as old as he was left here.

When his gentle mother began to remind him of the last summer's heat, and recalled how he sickened and drooped in the sultry breathless days, he remembered all he had suffered and how very tired and languid he felt. Now the summer would soon be here again, for it was the end of March already, and the doctor had said that if Jeff was not sent away to a cooler climate he would certainly die.

"We are not rich, my darling, your father and I, and he must stay here this year through the summer. I could not take you up to the hills as I did last year when you were so ill. You are everything to me—you are all I have got, my darling—" her voice broke a little. "You would certainly get ill again, and you might even leave me altogether—you might die—if I kept you here. Your grandmama knows my trouble, and she has written to ask me to send you to her. You will live with them all at Loch Lossie till some day we can come home." The pretty lady sighed and pushed her soft brown hair away from her forehead.

"Two or three years, Jeff, my darling, will pass soon—to you and me. I shall hope to hear that you are growing strong and well, and that you are mother's own brave lad, waiting patiently till she is able to meet you again. Be a man—do not grieve me now, my own little lad, by any tears. There are many things I want to say to you before you go, and if you cry—well—I cannot say them."

The little boy's face was quite hidden on his mother's knee. She felt him sob once or twice, and then all was quite still in this great shady room. So still that at last the poor mother thought her noisy active Jeff must have fallen asleep. Her hand was resting on his head, while her beautiful sad eyes gazed through the open window and across the parched bit of garden towards the high hills far away. Oh! if only she could take her child up there to the mountains and rest peacefully with him near the melting snows, and see the colour come back to his pale cheeks in the beautiful green gardens. She did hot weep, though her heart was very sore. For it seemed very cruel to send the child so far away to kinswomen who were strange to him—who she knew were not gifted with any loving tenderness towards childhood, any compassion or sympathy for waywardness. They would not understand Jeff. Might not the cold discipline warp all the noble generous instincts of her child's nature?

Then her hand began softly to stroke the quiet head. She could not see his face, but his little body quivered more than once at her touch, and she knew then that he could not be asleep. She did not speak to him any more—she had no words ready—her heart was so full.

Presently Jeff lifted himself slowly from her knee. His glance followed the direction of her eyes. He did not look her in the face at once.

"Mother, dear, indeed I will remember. I have been saying it over and over to myself, not to forget. I will be brave; it is a great thing to be a brave man father has always said. When you come to fetch me you shall see that I have not forgotten what you say, but—but do not let it be too long. It is so hard to be a man—for a boy to be a man—to be really brave—oh, so very hard! I wish I might cry, you know, but now you have asked me not to—I cannot—I will not."

The mother rose up quickly and paced the room backwards and forwards, with hands clasped and eyes bent on the floor. The little boy remained quite still where she had left him.

"Jeff, not to-morrow, but the day after is when you are to go. Your father will take you down to Bombay and see the steamer. We have so short a time together, you and I, and, dearest, I can never say all the things that are in my heart. You could not remember them if I did, and even if you could they would only sadden you. It would be a cruel burden to lay upon you, to tell you of my sorrow."

Jeff did not sob or cry when at last he lifted his brown eyes to his mother's face. Yet his voice was weak and trembling as he said slowly:

"I will go away from you bravely, mother, as you wish it. I have never been disobedient, have I? I will try and not forget till you come that you wish me to be brave—that it is a noble thing to be brave." Then, with a heart-rending sob, "Mother, oh mother, do not be very long before you come!"

CHAPTER II.

On the voyage home Jeff found many things to amuse him, and made friends in every part of the big steamer. The stewards, and the crew, and the stokers would all smile, or have some joke ready, when his bright little face appeared round some unlikely corner. For Jeff soon knew his way about the ship, and was here, there, and everywhere all day long. Of course he was not always thinking of his home in India, or of the dear faces he had left behind. Even grown-up people easily forget their sorrows in new scenes. Still, Jeff would grow grave when he remembered he had seen the tears in his father's eyes for the first time, when he had said, "Good-bye, my little son."

Further back still, and yet more sacred, so sacred indeed that he only liked to think of it after his prayers, he cherished in his memory the picture of his sad mother, standing in the verandah of their bungalow, waving her hand to them as he and Maggie were driven away. The tight feeling at his heart came again at the bare recollection of the tall slim figure in white, the tearless pale face, the sad sweet smile.

When he lay in his berth at night time—above the creaking and groaning of machinery, above the din inevitable on a steamer—he heard a gentle voice bless him as on that last evening at home:

"God be with you, my own little lad. Be brave till I see you again. I shall be so proud to feel that my boy is a real hero."

On the way to Bombay Jeff had asked his father what a real hero was. Then he had been told that a hero was "one full of courage and great patience, and dauntless before difficulties; one who allowed no fear to overcome him, who fulfilled his duty, and something over it under hard and trying circumstances."

Jeff was unusually quiet and thoughtful for some little time after this explanation, and the father could not help wondering why he looked so grave and sad.

"It will be difficult to be a hero—very difficult," he said at length with a heavy sigh.

Then the gallant soldier, who was his father, sighed too.

It was not heroic—it was only a simple duty to send his little son so far from him, and yet how hard a thing it was.

There was nothing that Jeff liked better on the big steamer than going "forrard" to the men's quarters. He would sit huddled up on a sea-chest, with his elbows resting on his knees, or would climb into an empty hammock and remain for hours, listening to the wonderful tales told him by the crew.

"Captain Clark, I really don't think it possibly can all be true—those stories the men tell, I mean. They must be quite heroes."

The little boy's brown eyes were round and stretched in amazement. The captain did not take long to draw from him some of the marvellous narratives and chapters of accidents that had been told to him.

"No, my little fellow, I don't think much of it is true either. We allow sailors to spin yarns and only believe as much as we like." Jeff was much better satisfied to feel that a hero was not an impossible being, and that these rough and ready, hard swearing, rollicking men were not in reality the stuff out of which was moulded true heroism, endurance, and nobility. He took comfort now in laughing at their "make believe" tales of miracles and chivalry.

At last the voyage, which had been all pleasantness to Jeff, came to an end, and he felt very sorry to think of parting with so many kind friends.

On a fine April morning, with a deep blue sky and an easterly