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tempest
that nobody saw showed plainly his uncontrolled feelings. "Oh, dear!
oh, dear! what shall I do?" moaned the poor child to himself, tossing on
his bed. "And am I making mamma ill too? But how can I help it? How
can I help it? I can't help being most frightfully miserable; yes, and
angry too. I am angry. Why did he come back from India to take
mother away? I don't believe she wants to go. Yes, I suppose she does
though. Oh, I wish, I wish he had never come back from India!
Everything has gone wrong since. I don't love him one bit. I wish, oh, I
wish it was as it used to be once!"
Poor Arthur, he sobbed and moaned until he was tired, and the
knowledge that he was very wicked did not certainly make him
happier.
He sobbed himself to sleep that night, and when the morning sunbeams
stole into the room and lighted on the white curtains of his bed, he
awoke with a dull, desolate feeling of a great pain in his heart.
CHAPTER III.

ARTHUR'S MOTHER; OR, "SAFE IN THE ARMS OF JESUS."
Mrs. Vivyan's morning-room was on the pleasant sunny side of the
house, and was a very favourite retreat of her little boy. Indeed there
was one corner of it which he considered as especially his own. It was a
little sofa near the window, rather hidden in a recess, so that any one
might be lying there and not be seen. Perhaps this idea of privacy was
one thing which made Arthur like it; and then it was near the window,
from which he could see the garden and the birds; and he liked to watch
the sun sparkling on the pond, and making diamond showers of the
fountain, which sometimes he would persuade the gardener to do for
him.
And now, with his new deep trouble weighing on his heart, he sought
his usual refuge. Nobody was in the room as Arthur and his companion,
Hector, came in, Arthur throwing himself wearily on the sofa, and
Hector making himself comfortable on the rug.
"Oh, dear!" groaned Arthur, after a while; "I don't think mother cares
very much. Come here, sir; do you care?"
Hector came, and obediently lay down near the sofa.
"Father doesn't care much, that I'm pretty sure of," continued Arthur;
"but I don't mind that so much. I wonder will mother miss me in India.
I wonder will you miss me, Hector, old boy. You ought, and you will
too, I expect. Do you think you will, Hector? Speak to me, do!"
But Hector only gravely wagged his tail.
"Oh, dear! I wish a great deal," said Arthur.
Just then there was a rustling noise at the door, and Arthur lay very still
and quiet as he saw that it was his mother who was coming in. He was
hidden on his sofa, so she did not see that he was there.
Presently she took her work from the table, and sat down in a low chair
by the fire; and Arthur watched her as she sat there, and gazed at her

sweet, gentle face.
He could not understand all that was there; but he could see enough to
make him very sorry that he had said "Mother doesn't care much."
There was such a look of patient sweetness there, and the eyes that she
now and then lifted up were deep with an expression of pain, only over
it all peace was shedding a softness and beauty that he could feel. He
watched her for a long time in silence, until at last a look of intense
pain seemed to furrow her brow, and suddenly she buried her face in
her hands, and he could just hear her say, "My darling, my darling!"
Arthur started up, and as she heard the sound she looked over to where
he was.
"My dear little Arthur, I did not know any one was in the room."
"Mamma, I did not mean to hide--to look--I mean, to listen. I forgot I
ought to have said I was here. Mother, may I say what I was thinking
before you came in?"
"Yes, darling. I always like to hear your thoughts."
"I was just thinking that you didn't seem to care so very much."
"What about?" asked his mother.
"Oh, about all those dreadful things--about dear little Mildred having
died, and about my being left all by myself."
It was not just directly that Mrs. Vivyan was able to answer, and then
she said:
"When you are older, darling, you will find out that it is not always the
people who talk and cry most, who feel things most; and that there is
such a thing as saying 'Thy will