Sylvie and Bruno Concluded (Illustrated)

When the Other Professor had recited this Verse, he went across to the fire-place, and put his head up the chimney. In doing this, he lost his balance, and fell head-first into the empty grate, and got so firmly fixed there that it was some time before he could be dragged out again.

Bruno had had time to say “I thought he wanted to see how many peoples was up the chimbley.”

And Sylvie had said “Chimney—not chimbley.”

And Bruno had said “Don’t talk ’ubbish!”

All this, while the Other Professor was being extracted.

“You must have blacked your face!” the Empress said anxiously. “Let me send for some soap?”

“Thanks, no,” said the Other Professor, keeping his face turned away. “Black’s quite a respectable colour. Besides, soap would be no use without water.”

Keeping his back well turned away from the audience, he went on with the Introductory Verses:—

“It’s a miserable story!” said Bruno. “It begins miserably, and it ends miserablier. I think I shall cry. Sylvie, please lend me your handkerchief.”

“I haven’t got it with me,” Sylvie whispered.

“Then I won’t cry,” said Bruno manfully.

“There are more Introductory Verses to come,” said the Other Professor, “but I’m hungry.” He sat down, cut a large slice of cake, put it on Bruno’s plate, and gazed at his own empty plate in astonishment.

“Where did you get that cake?” Sylvie whispered to Bruno.

“He gived it me,” said Bruno.

“But you shouldn’t ask for things! You know you shouldn’t!”

“I didn’t ask,” said Bruno, taking a fresh mouthful: “he gived it me.”

Sylvie considered this for a moment: then she saw her way out of it. “Well, then, ask him to give me some!”

“You seem to enjoy that cake?” the Professor remarked.

“Doos that mean ‘munch’?” Bruno whispered to Sylvie.

Sylvie nodded. “It means ‘to munch’ and ‘to like to munch.’”

Bruno smiled at the Professor. “I doos enjoy it,” he said.

The Other Professor caught the word. “And I hope you’re enjoying yourself, little Man?” he enquired.

Bruno’s look of horror quite startled him. “No, indeed I aren’t!” he said.

The Other Professor looked thoroughly puzzled. “Well, well!” he said. “Try some cowslip wine!” And he filled a glass and handed it to Bruno. “Drink this, my dear, and you’ll be quite another man!”

“Who shall I be?” said Bruno, pausing in the act of putting it to his lips.

“Don’t ask so many questions!” Sylvie interposed, anxious to save the poor old man from further bewilderment. “Suppose we get the Professor to tell us a story.”

Bruno adopted the idea with enthusiasm. “Please do!” he cried eagerly. “Sumfin about tigers—and bumble-bees—and robin-redbreasts, oo knows!”

“Why should you always have live things in stories?” said the Professor. “Why don’t you have events, or circumstances?”

“Oh, please invent a story like that!” cried Bruno.

The Professor began fluently enough. “Once a coincidence was taking a walk with a little accident, and they met an explanation—a very old explanation—so old that it was quite doubled up, and looked more like a conundrum——” he broke off suddenly.

“Please go on!” both children exclaimed.

The Professor made a candid confession. “It’s a very difficult sort to invent, I find. Suppose Bruno tells one, first.”

Bruno was only too happy to adopt the suggestion.

“Once there were a Pig, and a Accordion, and two Jars of Orange-marmalade——”

“The dramatis personæ,” murmured the Professor. “Well, what then?”

“So, when the Pig played on the Accordion,” Bruno went on, “one of the Jars of Orange-marmalade didn’t like the tune, and the other Jar of Orange-marmalade did like the tune—I know I shall get confused among those Jars of Orange-marmalade, Sylvie!” he whispered anxiously.

“I will now recite the other Introductory Verses,” said the Other Professor.

“The next thing to be done,” the Professor cheerfully remarked to the Lord Chancellor, as soon as the applause, caused by the recital of the Pig-Tale, had come to an end, “is to drink the Emperor’s health, is it not?”

“Undoubtedly!” the Lord Chancellor replied with much solemnity, as he rose to his feet to give the necessary directions for the ceremony. “Fill your glasses!” he thundered. All did so, instantly. “Drink the Emperor’s health!” A general gurgling resounded all through the Hall. “Three cheers for the Emperor!” The faintest possible sound followed this announcement: and the Chancellor, with admirable presence of mind, instantly proclaimed “A speech from the Emperor!”

The Emperor had begun his speech almost before the words were uttered. “However unwilling to be Emperor—since you all wish me to be Emperor—you know how badly the late Warden managed things—with such enthusiasm as you have shown—he persecuted you—he taxed you too heavily—you know who is fittest man to be Emperor—my brother had no sense——.”

How long this curious speech might have lasted it is impossible to say, for just at this moment a hurricane shook the palace to its foundations, bursting open the windows, extinguishing some of the lamps, and filling the air with clouds of dust, which took strange shapes in the air, and seemed to form words.

But the storm subsided as suddenly as it had risen—the casements swung into their places again: the dust vanished: all was as it had been a minute ago—with the exception of the Emperor and Empress, over whom had come a wondrous change. The vacant stare, the meaningless smile, had passed away: all could see that these two strange beings had returned to their senses.

The Emperor continued his speech as if there had been no interruption. “And we have behaved—my wife and I—like two arrant Knaves. We deserve no better name. When my brother went away, you lost the best Warden you ever had. And I’ve been doing my best, wretched hypocrite that I am, to cheat you into making me an Emperor. Me! One that has hardly got the wits to be a shoe-black!”

The Lord Chancellor wrung his hands in despair. “He is mad, good people!” he was beginning. But both speeches stopped suddenly—and, in the dead silence that followed, a knocking was heard at the outer door.

“What is it?” was the general cry. People began running in and out. The excitement increased every moment. The Lord Chancellor, forgetting all the rules of Court-ceremony, ran full speed down the hall, and in a minute returned, pale and gasping for breath.

CHAPTER XXIV.
THE BEGGAR’S RETURN.

“Your Imperial Highnesses!” he began. “It’s the old Beggar again! Shall we set the dogs at him?”

“Bring him here!” said the Emperor.

The Chancellor could scarcely believe his ears. “Here, your Imperial Highness? Did I rightly understand——.”

“Bring him here!” the Emperor thundered once more. The Chancellor tottered down the hall—and in another minute the crowd divided, and the poor old Beggar was seen entering the Banqueting-Hall.

He was indeed a pitiable object: the rags, that hung about him, were all splashed with mud: his white hair and his long beard were tossed about in wild disorder. Yet he walked upright, with a stately tread, as if used to command: and—strangest sight of all—Sylvie and Bruno came with him, clinging to his hands, and gazing at him with looks of silent love.

Men looked eagerly to see how the Emperor would receive the bold intruder. Would he hurl him from the steps of the daïs? But no. To their utter astonishment, the Emperor knelt as the beggar approached, and with bowed head murmured “Forgive us!”

“Forgive us!” the Empress, kneeling at her husband’s side, meekly repeated.

The Outcast smiled. “Rise up!” he said. “I forgive you!” And men saw with wonder that a change had passed over the old beggar, even as he spoke. What had seemed, but now, to be vile rags and splashes of mud, were seen to be in truth kingly trappings, broidered with gold, and sparkling with gems. All knew him now, and bent low before the Elder Brother, the true Warden.

“Brother mine, and Sister mine!” the Warden began, in a clear voice that was heard all through that vast hall. “I come not to disturb you. Rule on, as Emperor, and rule wisely. For I am chosen King of Elfland. To-morrow I return there, taking nought from hence, save only—save only——” his voice trembled, and with a look of ineffable tenderness, he laid his hands in silence on the heads of the two little ones who clung around him.

But he recovered himself in a moment, and beckoned to the Emperor to resume his place at the table. The company seated themselves again—room being found for the Elfin-King between his two children—and the Lord Chancellor rose once more, to propose the next toast.

“The next toast—the hero of the day—why, he isn’t here!” he broke off in wild confusion.

Good gracious! Everybody had forgotten Prince Uggug!

“He was told of the Banquet, of course?” said the Emperor.

“Undoubtedly!” replied the Chancellor. “That would be the duty of the Gold Stick in Waiting.”

“Let the Gold Stick come forwards!” the Emperor gravely said.

The Gold Stick came forwards. “I attended on His Imperial Fatness,” was the statement made by the trembling official. “I told him of the Lecture and the Banquet——.”

“What followed?” said the Emperor: for the unhappy man seemed almost too frightened to go on.

“His Imperial Fatness was graciously pleased to be sulky. His Imperial Fatness was graciously pleased to box my ears. His Imperial Fatness was graciously pleased to say ‘I don’t care!’”

“‘Don’t-care’ came to a bad end,” Sylvie whispered to Bruno. “I’m not sure, but I believe he was hanged.”

The Professor overheard her. “That result,” he blandly remarked, “was merely a case of mistaken identity.”

Both children looked puzzled.

“Permit me to explain. ‘Don’t-care’ and ‘Care’ were twin-brothers. ‘Care,’ you know, killed the Cat. And they caught ‘Don’t-care’ by mistake, and hanged him instead. And so ‘Care’ is alive still. But he’s very unhappy without his brother. That’s why they say ‘Begone, dull Care!’”

“Thank you!” Sylvie said, heartily. “It’s very extremely interesting. Why, it seems to explain everything!”

“Well, not quite everything,” the Professor modestly rejoined. “There are two or three scientific difficulties——”

“What was your general impression as to His Imperial Fatness?” the Emperor asked the Gold Stick.

“My impression was that His Imperial Fatness was getting more——”

“More what?”

All listened breathlessly for the next word.

“More PRICKLY!”

“He must be sent for at once!” the Emperor exclaimed. And the Gold Stick went off like a shot. The Elfin-King sadly shook his head. “No use, no use!” he murmured to himself. “Loveless, loveless!”

Pale, trembling, speechless, the Gold Stick came slowly back again.

“Well?” said the Emperor. “Why does not the Prince appear?”

“One can easily guess,” said the Professor. “His Imperial Fatness is, without doubt, a little preoccupied.”

Bruno turned a look of solemn enquiry on his old friend. “What do that word mean?”

But the Professor took no notice of the question. He was eagerly listening to the Gold Stick’s reply.

“Please your Highness! His Imperial Fatness is——” Not a word more could he utter.

The Empress rose in an agony of alarm. “Let us go to him!” she cried. And there was a general rush for the door.

Bruno slipped off his chair in a moment. “May we go too?” he eagerly asked. But the King did not hear the question, as the Professor was speaking to him. “Preoccupied, your Majesty!” he was saying. “That is what he is, no doubt!”

“May we go and see him?” Bruno repeated. The King nodded assent, and the children ran off. In a minute or two they returned, slowly and gravely. “Well?” said the King. “What’s the matter with the Prince?”

“He’s—what you said,” Bruno replied, looking at the Professor. “That hard word.” And he looked to Sylvie for assistance.

“Porcupine,” said Sylvie.

“No, no!” the Professor corrected her. “‘Pre-occupied,’ you mean.”

“No, it’s porcupine,” persisted Sylvie. “Not that other word at all. And please will you come? The house is all in an uproar.” (“And oo’d better bring an uproar-glass wiz oo!” added Bruno.)

We got up in great haste, and followed the children upstairs. No one took the least notice of me, but I wasn’t at all surprised at this, as I had long realised that I was quite invisible to them all—even to Sylvie and Bruno.

All along the gallery, that led to the Prince’s apartment, an excited crowd was surging to and fro, and the Babel of voices was deafening: against the door of the room three strong men were leaning, vainly trying to shut it—for some great animal inside was constantly bursting it half open, and we had a glimpse, before the men could push it back again, of the head of a furious wild beast, with great fiery eyes and gnashing teeth. Its voice was a sort of mixture—there was the roaring of a lion, and the bellowing of a bull, and now and then a scream like a gigantic parrot. “There is no judging by the voice!” the Professor cried in great excitement. “What is it?” he shouted to the men at the door. And a general chorus of voices answered him “Porcupine! Prince Uggug has turned into a Porcupine!”

“A new Specimen!” exclaimed the delighted Professor. “Pray let me go in. It should be labeled at once!”

But the strong men only pushed him back. “Label it, indeed! Do you want to be eaten up?” they cried.

“Never mind about Specimens, Professor!” said the Emperor, pushing his way through the crowd. “Tell us how to keep him safe!”

“A large cage!” the Professor promptly replied. “Bring a large cage,” he said to the people generally, “with strong bars of steel, and a portcullis made to go up and down like a mouse-trap! Does any one happen to have such a thing about him?”

It didn’t sound a likely sort of thing for any one to have about him; however, they brought him one directly: curiously enough, there happened to be one standing in the gallery.

“Put it facing the opening of the door, and draw up the portcullis!” This was done in a moment.

“Blankets now!” cried the Professor. “This is a most interesting Experiment!”

There happened to be a pile of blankets close by: and the Professor had hardly said the word, when they were all unfolded and held up like curtains all around. The Professor rapidly arranged them in two rows, so as to make a dark passage, leading straight from the door to the mouth of the cage.

“Now fling the door open!” This did not need to be done: the three men had only to leap out of the way, and the fearful monster flung the door open for itself, and, with a yell like the whistle of a steam-engine, rushed into the cage.

“Down with the portcullis!” No sooner said than done: and all breathed freely once more, on seeing the Porcupine safely caged.

The Professor rubbed his hands in childish delight. “The Experiment has succeeded!” he proclaimed. “All that is needed now is to feed it three times a day, on chopped carrots and——.”

“Never mind about its food, just now!” the Emperor interrupted. “Let us return to the Banquet. Brother, will you lead the way?” And the old man, attended by his children, headed the procession down stairs. “See the fate of a loveless life!” he said to Bruno, as they returned to their places. To which Bruno made reply, “I always loved Sylvie, so I’ll never get prickly like that!”

“He is prickly, certainly,” said the Professor, who had caught the last words, “but we must remember that, however porcupiny, he is royal still! After this feast is over, I’m going to take a little present to Prince Uggug—just to soothe him, you know: it isn’t pleasant living in a cage.”

“What’ll you give him for a birthday-present?” Bruno enquired.

“A small saucer of chopped carrots,” replied the Professor. “In giving birthday-presents, my motto is—cheapness! I should think I save forty pounds a year by giving—oh, what a twinge of pain!”

“What is it?” said Sylvie anxiously.

“My old enemy!” groaned the Professor. “Lumbago—rheumatism—that sort of thing. I think I’ll go and lie down a bit.” And he hobbled out of the Saloon, watched by the pitying eyes of the two children.

“He’ll be better soon!” the Elfin-King said cheerily. “Brother!” turning to the Emperor, “I have some business to arrange with you to-night. The Empress will take care of the children.” And the two Brothers went away together, arm-in-arm.

The Empress found the children rather sad company. They could talk of nothing but “the dear Professor,” and “what a pity he’s so ill!”, till at last she made the welcome proposal “Let’s go and see him!”

The children eagerly grasped the hands she offered them: and we went off to the Professor’s study, and found him lying on the sofa, covered up with blankets, and reading a little manuscript-book. “Notes on Vol. Three!” he murmured, looking up at us. And there, on a table near him, lay the book he was seeking when first I saw him.

“And how are you now, Professor?” the Empress asked, bending over the invalid.

The Professor looked up, and smiled feebly. “As devoted to your Imperial Highness as ever!” he said in a weak voice. “All of me, that is not Lumbago, is Loyalty!”

“A sweet sentiment!” the Empress exclaimed with tears in her eyes. “You seldom hear anything so beautiful as that—even in a Valentine!”

“We must take you to stay at the seaside,” Sylvie said, tenderly. “It’ll do you ever so much good! And the Sea’s so grand!”

“But a Mountain’s grander!” said Bruno.

“What is there grand about the Sea?” said the Professor. “Why, you could put it all into a teacup!”

“Some of it,” Sylvie corrected him.

“Well, you’d only want a certain number of tea-cups to hold it all. And then where’s the grandeur? Then as to a Mountain—why, you could carry it all away in a wheel-barrow, in a certain number of years!”

“It wouldn’t look grand—the bits of it in the wheel-barrow,” Sylvie candidly admitted.

“But when oo put it together again——” Bruno began.

“When you’re older,” said the Professor, “you’ll know that you ca’n’t put Mountains together again so easily! One lives and one learns, you know!”

“But it needn’t be the same one, need it?” said Bruno. “Won’t it do, if I live, and if Sylvie learns?”

“I ca’n’t learn without living!” said Sylvie.

“But I can live without learning!” Bruno retorted. “Oo just try me!”

“What I meant, was—” the Professor began, looking much puzzled, “—was—that you don’t know everything, you know.”

“But I do know everything I know!” persisted the little fellow. “I know ever so many things! Everything, ’cept the things I don’t know. And Sylvie knows all the rest.”

The Professor sighed, and gave it up. “Do you know what a Boojum is?”

“I know!” cried Bruno. “It’s the thing what wrenches people out of their boots!”

“He means ‘bootjack,’” Sylvie explained in a whisper.

“You ca’n’t wrench people out of boots,” the Professor mildly observed.

Bruno laughed saucily. “Oo can, though! Unless they’re welly tight in.”

“Once upon a time there was a Boojum——” the Professor began, but stopped suddenly. “I forget the rest of the Fable,” he said. “And there was a lesson to be learned from it. I’m afraid I forget that, too.”

“I’ll tell oo a Fable!” Bruno began in a great hurry. “Once there were a Locust, and a Magpie, and a Engine-driver. And the Lesson is, to learn to get up early——”

“It isn’t a bit interesting!” Sylvie said contemptuously. “You shouldn’t put the Lesson so soon.”

“When did you invent that Fable?” said the Professor. “Last week?”

“No!” said Bruno. “A deal shorter ago than that. Guess again!”

“I ca’n’t guess,” said the Professor. “How long ago?”

“Why, it isn’t invented yet!” Bruno exclaimed triumphantly. “But I have invented a lovely one! Shall I say it?”

“If you’ve finished inventing it,” said Sylvie. “And let the Lesson be ‘to try again’!”

“No,” said Bruno with great decision. “The Lesson are ‘not to try again’!” “Once there were a lovely china man, what stood on the chimbley-piece. And he stood, and he stood. And one day he tumbleded off, and he didn’t hurt his self one bit. Only he would try again. And the next time he tumbleded off, he hurted his self welly much, and breaked off ever so much varnish.”

“But how did he come back on the chimney-piece after his first tumble?” said the Empress. (It was the first sensible question she had asked in all her life.)

“I put him there!” cried Bruno.

“Then I’m afraid you know something about his tumbling,” said the Professor. “Perhaps you pushed him?”

To which Bruno replied, very seriously, “Didn’t pushed him much—he were a lovely china man,” he added hastily, evidently very anxious to change the subject.

“Come, my children!” said the Elfin-King, who had just entered the room. “We must have a little chat together, before you go to bed.” And he was leading them away, but at the door they let go his hands, and ran back again to wish the Professor good night.

“Good night, Professor, good night!” And Bruno solemnly shook hands with the old man, who gazed at him with a loving smile, while Sylvie bent down to press her sweet lips upon his forehead.

“Good night, little ones!” said the Professor. “You may leave me now—to ruminate. I’m as jolly as the day is long, except when it’s necessary to ruminate on some very difficult subject. All of me,” he murmured sleepily as we left the room, “all of me, that isn’t Bonhommie, is Rumination!”

“What did he say, Bruno?” Sylvie enquired, as soon as we were safely out of hearing.

“I think he said ‘All of me that isn’t Bone-disease is Rheumatism.’ Whatever are that knocking, Sylvie?”

Sylvie stopped, and listened anxiously. It sounded like some one kicking at a door. “I hope it isn’t that Porcupine breaking loose!” she exclaimed.

“Let’s go on!” Bruno said hastily. “There’s nuffin to wait for, oo know!“

CHAPTER XXV
LIFE OUT OF DEATH.

The sound of kicking, or knocking, grew louder every moment: and at last a door opened somewhere near us. “Did you say ‘come in!’ Sir?” my landlady asked timidly.

“Oh yes, come in!” I replied. “What’s the matter?”

“A note has just been left for you, Sir, by the baker’s boy. He said he was passing the Hall, and they asked him to come round and leave it here.”

The note contained five words only. “Please come at once. Muriel.”

A sudden terror seemed to chill my very heart. “The Earl is ill!” I said to myself. “Dying, perhaps!” And I hastily prepared to leave the house.

“No bad news, Sir, I hope?” my landlady said, as she saw me out. “The boy said as some one had arrived unexpectedly——.”

“I hope that is it!” I said. But my feelings were those of fear rather than of hope: though, on entering the house, I was somewhat reassured by finding luggage lying in the entrance, bearing the initials “E. L.”

“It’s only Eric Lindon after all!” I thought, half relieved and half annoyed. “Surely she need not have sent for me for that!”

Lady Muriel met me in the passage. Her eyes were gleaming—but it was the excitement of joy, rather than of grief. “I have a surprise for you!” she whispered.

“You mean that Eric Lindon is here?” I said, vainly trying to disguise the involuntary bitterness of my tone. “‘The funeral baked meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage-tables,’” I could not help repeating to myself. How cruelly I was misjudging her!

“No, no!” she eagerly replied. “At least—Eric is here. But——,” her voice quivered, “but there is another!”

No need for further question. I eagerly followed her in. There on the bed, he lay—pale and worn—the mere shadow of his old self—my old friend come back again from the dead!

“Arthur!” I exclaimed. I could not say another word.

“Yes, back again, old boy!” he murmured, smiling as I grasped his hand. “He,” indicating Eric, who stood near, “saved my life—He brought me back. Next to God, we must thank him, Muriel, my wife!”

Silently I shook hands with Eric and with the Earl: and with one consent we moved into the shaded side of the room, where we could talk without disturbing the invalid, who lay, silent and happy, holding his wife’s hand in his, and watching her with eyes that shone with the deep steady light of Love.

“He has been delirious till to-day,” Eric explained in a low voice: “and even to-day he has been wandering more than once. But the sight of her has been new life to him.” And then he went on to tell us, in would-be careless tones—I knew how he hated any display of feeling—how he had insisted on going back to the plague-stricken town, to bring away a man whom the doctor had abandoned as dying, but who might, he fancied, recover if brought to the hospital: how he had seen nothing in the wasted features to remind him of Arthur, and only recognised him when he visited the hospital a month after: how the doctor had forbidden him to announce the discovery, saying that any shock to the over taxed brain might kill him at once: how he had staid on at the hospital, and nursed the sick man by night and day—all this with the studied indifference of one who is relating the commonplace acts of some chance acquaintance!

“And this was his rival!” I thought. “The man who had won from him the heart of the woman he loved!”

“The sun is setting,” said Lady Muriel, rising and leading the way to the open window. “Just look at the western sky! What lovely crimson tints! We shall have a glorious day to-morrow——” We had followed her across the room, and were standing in a little group, talking in low tones in the gathering gloom, when we were startled by the voice of the sick man, murmuring words too indistinct for the ear to catch.

“He is wandering again,” Lady Muriel whispered, and returned to the bedside. We drew a little nearer also: but no, this had none of the incoherence of delirium. “What reward shall I give unto the Lord,” the tremulous lips were saying, “for all the benefits that He hath done unto me? I will receive the cup of salvation, and call—and call——” but here the poor weakened memory failed, and the feeble voice died into silence.

His wife knelt down at the bedside, raised one of his arms, and drew it across her own, fondly kissing the thin white hand that lay so listlessly in her loving grasp. It seemed to me a good opportunity for stealing away without making her go through any form of parting: so, nodding to the Earl and Eric, I silently left the room. Eric followed me down the stairs, and out into the night.

“Is it Life or Death?” I asked him, as soon as we were far enough from the house for me to speak in ordinary tones.

“It is Life!” he replied with eager emphasis. “The doctors are quite agreed as to that. All he needs now, they say, is rest, and perfect quiet, and good nursing. He’s quite sure to get rest and quiet, here: and, as for the nursing why, I think it’s just possible——” (he tried hard to make his trembling voice assume a playful tone) “he may even get fairly well nursed, in his present quarters!”

“I’m sure of it!” I said. “Thank you so much for coming out to tell me!” And, thinking he had now said all he had come to say, I held out my hand to bid him good night. He grasped it warmly, and added, turning his face away as he spoke, “By the way, there is one other thing I wanted to say. I thought you’d like to know that—that I’m not—not in the mind I was in when last we met. It isn’t—that I can accept Christian belief—at least, not yet. But all this came about so strangely. And she had prayed, you know. And I had prayed. And—and—” his voice broke, and I could only just catch the concluding words, “there is a God that answers prayer! I know it for certain now.” He wrung my hand once more, and left me suddenly. Never before had I seen him so deeply moved.

So, in the gathering twilight, I paced slowly homewards, in a tumultuous whirl of happy thoughts: my heart seemed full, and running over, with joy and thankfulness: all that I had so fervently longed for, and prayed for, seemed now to have come to pass. And, though I reproached myself, bitterly, for the unworthy suspicion I had for one moment harboured against the true-hearted Lady Muriel, I took comfort in knowing it had been but a passing thought.

Not Bruno himself could have mounted the stairs with so buoyant a step, as I felt my way up in the dark, not pausing to strike a light in the entry, as I knew I had left the lamp burning in my sitting-room.

But it was no common lamplight into which I now stepped, with a strange, new, dreamy sensation of some subtle witchery that had come over the place. Light, richer and more golden than any lamp could give, flooded the room, streaming in from a window I had somehow never noticed before, and lighting up a group of three shadowy figures, that grew momently more distinct—a grave old man in royal robes, leaning back in an easy chair, and two children, a girl and a boy, standing at his side.

“Have you the Jewel still, my child?” the old man was saying.

“Oh, yes!” Sylvie exclaimed with unusual eagerness. “Do you think I’d ever lose it or forget it?” She undid the ribbon round her neck, as she spoke, and laid the Jewel in her father’s hand.

Bruno looked at it admiringly. “What a lovely brightness!” he said. “It’s just like a little red star! May I take it in my hand?”

Sylvie nodded: and Bruno carried it off to the window, and held it aloft against the sky, whose deepening blue was already spangled with stars. Soon he came running back in some excitement. “Sylvie! Look here!” he cried. “I can see right through it when I hold it up to the sky. And it isn’t red a bit: it’s, oh such a lovely blue! And the words are all different! Do look at it!”

Sylvie was quite excited, too, by this time; and the two children eagerly held up the Jewel to the light, and spelled out the legend between them, “ALL WILL LOVE SYLVIE.”

“Why, this is the other Jewel!” cried Bruno. “Don’t you remember, Sylvie? The one you didn’t choose!”

Sylvie took it from him, with a puzzled look, and held it, now up to the light, now down. “It’s blue, one way,” she said softly to herself, “and it’s red, the other way! Why, I thought there were two of them—Father!” she suddenly exclaimed, laying the Jewel once more in his hand, “I do believe it was the same Jewel all the time!”

“Then you choosed it from itself,” Bruno thoughtfully remarked. “Father, could Sylvie choose a thing from itself?”

“Yes, my own one,” the old man replied to Sylvie, not noticing Bruno’s embarrassing question, “it was the same Jewel—but you chose quite right.” And he fastened the ribbon round her neck again.

“SYLVIE WILL LOVE ALL—ALL WILL LOVE SYLVIE,” Bruno murmured, raising himself on tiptoe to kiss the ‘little red star.’ “And, when you look at it, it’s red and fierce like the sun—and, when you look through it, it’s gentle and blue like the sky!”

“God’s own sky,” Sylvie said, dreamily.

“God’s own sky,” the little fellow repeated, as they stood, lovingly clinging together, and looking out into the night. “But oh, Sylvie, what makes the sky such a darling blue?”

Sylvie’s sweet lips shaped themselves to reply, but her voice sounded faint and very far away. The vision was fast slipping from my eager gaze: but it seemed to me, in that last bewildering moment, that not Sylvie but an angel was looking out through those trustful brown eyes, and that not Sylvie’s but an angel’s voice was whispering

“It is love.”

THE END.

GENERAL INDEX.

[N.B. ‘I’ refers to “Sylvie and Bruno,” ‘II’ to “Sylvie and Bruno Concluded.”]

A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A

Accelerated Velocity, causes of; II. 190

Air, Cotton-wool lighter than, how to obtain; II. 166

Animal-Suffering, mystery of; II. 296

Anti-Teetotal Card; II. 139

Artistic effect said to require Indistinctness; I. 241

Asylums, Lunatic-, future use for; II. 132

Axioms of Science; II. 330

B

Badgers, the Three (Poem); I. 247

Barometer, sideways motion of; I. 13

Baron Doppelgeist; I. 85

Bath, Portable, for Tourists; I. 25

Bazaars, Charity-; II. 44

Beauty, Pain of realising; II. 337

Bed, reason for never going to; II. 141

Bees, Mind of; II. 29

Bessie’s Song; II. 76

Bible-Selections for Children; I. xiii

” ” learning by heart; I. xiv

Black Light, how to produce; II. 341

Boat, motion of, how to imitate on land; II. 108

Books, or Minds. Which contain most Science? I. 21

Boots for Horizontal Weather; I. 14

Brain, inverted position of; I. 243

Bread-sauce appropriate for Weltering; I. 58

Breaking promises. Why is it wrong? II. 27

Bruno’s Song: I. 215

Burden of Proof misplaced by Crocodiles; I. 230

” ” ” Ladies; I. 235

” ” ” Watts, Dr.; do.

C

‘Care’ and ‘Don’t-Care,’ history of; II. 385

Carrying one’s self. Why is it not fatiguing? I. 169

Charity-Bazaars; II. 44

” fallacies as to; II. 43

” Pseudo-; II. 42

Child’s Bible; I. xiii

” Sunday, in last generation; I. 387

” view of Adult Life; II. 260

” ” Present Life; I. 330

Choral Services, effect of; I. 273. II. xix

Chorister’s life, dangers of; I. 274. II. xix

Church-going, true principle of; I. 272

Competition for Scholars; II. 187

Competitive Examination; II. 184

Conceited Critic always depreciates; I. 237

Content, opportunity for cultivating; I. 152

‘Convenient’ and ‘Inconvenient,’ difference in meaning; I. 140

Conversation at Dinner-parties, how to promote: (see “Dinner-parties”)

Cotton-wool lighter than air, how to obtain; II. 166

Critic, conceited, always depreciates; I. 237

” how to gain character of; I. 238

Crocodiles, Logic of; I. 230

Croquet. Why is it demoralising? II. 135