"A LITTLE CHILD SHALL LEAD THEM."

I REMEMBER as if it were only yesterday the cottage in which we used to live when I was a girl,-father, and little Ben, and I. I was seven years older than Ben, and was reckoned a steady, sensible lass; I took care of him as if I had been his mother. I was aye remembering how our mother had cared for me and taught me, and how, when she lay dying, she put little baby Ben into my arms. Susan," she said, "you must be instead of a mother to your little brother: God has called me, Jesus loves me, and I'm fain to go; but my heart is sore through all the

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SEPTEMBER, 1868.

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joy, when I think of your father and you and my little, little lad. Don't forget what I've taught you, my child: try to do as Jesus bids you, and by-and-by he will take you where he is taking me." I was but a little lass, but I promised to mind her words; and often, when I might have forgotten what was right, her voice and her face would come back, and make me feel as if she were once more by my side. It seems to me now but a little while before Ben was running about the cottage floor, calling me with his pretty childish tongue. He was a pleasant, merry child, and very forward for his years; easy to manage by kindness, but with a rare spirit if he was provoked: he needed his mother's firm, loving voice and manner, that used to make me feel good almost in spite of myself.

When he was able to run by my side, he used to like to go on Sunday mornings with father and me, and afterwards to stand by our mother's grave, and I would tell him, as well as I could, how dear and good she was, and how she loved us all. Then I would tell him that Jesus had taken her safely to heaven, to be happy there, and that if we would trust him, he would one day take us also. The woods and fields were green and fresh round our home, and in the summer days we often wandered out together to gather cowslips or dog-roses, or in the autumn, blackberries and nuts.

We all learn some day, if we grow to be men and women, that there are some hours in our lives never to be forgotten, not for what they were in themselves, but because they brought the unseen beginning of some great joy or trouble. I am thinking just now of one of these.

It was a spring evening, and as I was putting Ben to bed, he asked me to try to get done early the next day, and take him to a wood two miles off, to gather wood-anemones. ""Twill be a holiday, you know, Susan," said he, coaxing me; "'tis master's birthday; and Johnny Cross told me as we came home from school this evening that Reefham Wood was fuller of flowers than ever this spring. Do let us go, Susan, and we will bring home flowers for father, and for Johnny too; he can't go, his sister is ill."

"Shall we ask Johnny to go with us ?" I said.

Ben was pleased enough, and the next morning he was up early, to run to his little friend and tell him of our plan. Soon he came back, rather more slowly than he went. "Susan, Johnny can't go, his head's bad."

We were both sorry, but hoped for Johnny another time, and soon set off merrily to the wood, with our dinners in a basket, and Ben's dog Trip to run with us. We had a happy morning in the woods, and when we had had dinner, we filled the basket with flowers; then we sat on a stile while I trimmed Ben's straw hat with trails of wood anemones and woodbine. We had been very merry, but were quiet now; and by-and-by Ben began to talk about mother, and ask me, as he often did, to tell him all I could remember about her. 66 Susan," he said, "I wish I could give mother my pretty flowers; she should have them every one: do you think she has flowers in heaven ?"

"Yes, Ben; and a deal prettier than ours.

Yours are

fading even now in your little hot hands; I don't think the flowers in heaven ever fade."

"If Johnny dies," said Ben, "do you think he will go to heaven, and see our mother there?"

Why, child, how you talk!" I said; "Johnny is not like to die."

“But tell me, Susan; I want to know.”

"Yes," I said; "if Johnny thinks of Jesus, who loves children, and if he asks him in his heart to take care of him and bring him safely home, then Jesus will carry him in his arms to heaven, when the time comes for him to die."

On our way home Ben said, "Susan, would you carry me a very little way, I'm tired." I lifted him as best I could; his head fell on my shoulder, and his eyes closed. I didn't like his look, and got him home as quickly as I could, carrying him a few steps now and then, till we reached our cottage, and I laid him on his little bed.

Little Ben got worse instead of better, and a day or two after, when father came home, he bade me go for the doctor. I wondered why he looked so white, but I dared not stay to ask. The doctor came: he was a very kind man, and made no delay when he saw how anxious I was. He stood by the bed-side, and took Ben's little hot hand in his; then he looked up, and his eyes met my father's.

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Is it so, then, doctor?" said he.

"Yes, Mr. Hitchin, it is so; but you've taken it in time: you'll see him do well, depend upon it."

Pray God I may," groaned my father.

"This is the third case to-day," said the doctor; "there is a terrible time before us, I fear."

My father hardly seemed to hear. He was stooping over Ben, trying to hide the hot tears all gathered in his eyes; but it was no use, they ran down his furrowed cheeks and fell on Ben's face. When the doctor was gone, father told me that my little brother was very ill with typhus fever, caught, he supposed, from Johnny, who was down with it too. "It's no use, child," he said, "sending you away now; we must nurse him the best we can, but we shall do but poorly without your mother."

The doctor was right. The fever spread through the village, and a terrible time it was: there was scarce a house where one did not lay sick, and in many cases sick unto death. I was but fifteen; but I seemed to grow into a woman in those long days and nights in which I watched my little brother, scarcely daring to lie down or go out for fresh air. There was not any one to help me; for even if we could have spared the money for a nurse, there were none in the village but had their work at home.

So for three weeks father and I struggled on, father working and I nursing by day, and taking our turns in the night, for we dare not leave him unwatched; but, hard as it was, it all seemed as nothing when we heard the doctor say that the child would live. The crisis safely passed, he began slowly to mend; bit by bit, a little colour came in his wasted cheeks, and strength to his feeble limbs, till on one happy Sunday evening father lifted him for the first time from his bed, and carried him to the window to look out on the green fields we had thought he would never see again. As we stood there we heard the bells begin to chime for evening prayer, which was held during this sad time in the churchyard, to lessen the risk of infection.

“ Father, you will soon carry me to church, won't you?" said Ben.

"You must wait awhile for that. Why would you go to church, lad?" said my father.

"Because I want to speak to Jesus," answered Ben.

"You need not wait to go to church for that: tell me what you want to say."

"Father, Susan told me that Jesus loves little children, and I want to thank him, and ask him to take care of me, and not let me be naughty any more; I thought I could say it best in church."

Say it there and now too," said my father; and Ben

knelt against father's breast and said his prayer, and then was laid down again to sleep. It seemed as if my words said just before he was ill had dwelt on his mind, and God had been pleased to use them to turn his heart to the loving Saviour who gathers the lambs in his bosom.

Next day, as I sat at work by his bed, Ben said, suddenly, "Has Mr. Mason had the fever?"

"I don't know, Ben; I've never been near the place since you were ill," I replied.

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Please, Susan dear, go and see; I dreamt he was ill, and all alone."

So, to pacify the child, I put the shawl over my head, and went to look if Mr. Mason were about. He was a neighbour of ours, living in a large old house across a field or two. He was said to be rich, but he lived alone, and worked all day in his garden, seeming to live on what he could raise in this way. Unless he were ill, he was sure to be at work somewhere in sight; and I felt almost certain he would be there, for somehow it did not seem likely to me that he should have the fever.

Weeds

I looked all round the garden, but saw no one. were growing in some of the beds, and the place had lost something of its usual trim aspect. I knew a few days' neglect would make such a change in this early summer weather. I stood thinking what I should do. Mr. Mason, though a neighbour, was no friend of ours: he quarrelled with every one, and had contrived to make even my good, patient father angry with him by his treatment of Ben. He had severely beaten the little fellow one day, because Trip had got into his garden and damaged one of his beds of early vegetables. Since then we had not spoken to him, nor gone near his place; so I turned back, contenting myself with the thought that I would ask father in the evening. But Ben was not satisfied. "Sister, do go again," he said; "he may be very ill, and he has no one to look after him; please, dear, go."

"He is such a bad, rough man,” I said.

"But if he is ill he can't hurt you; and if he is bad, sister, wouldn't you like to tell him about Jesus: I should if I could go."

At last I went again. I knocked at the door, waited, and knocked again many times, while my heart beat almost as loud as the knocker. No one came, so I tried the door; it unlatched, and I stood in the entry.