who might perhaps be persuaded some day or other to take a little notice
of him, if he should fail to get a crossing for himself. Oliver, in his
long, unbroken solitude of six years, had fallen into a notion, amounting
to a firm belief, that his Lord was not dead and far off, as most of the
world believed, but was a very present, living friend, always ready to
listen to the meanest of his words. He had a vague suspicion that his
faith had got into a different course from that of most other people; and
he bore meekly the rebukes of his sister Charlotte for the
unwholesomeness of his visions. But none the less, when he was alone, he
talked and prayed to, and spoke to Tony of this Master, as one who was
always very near at hand.

"I s'pose he takes a bit o' notice o' the little un," said Tony, "when he
comes in now and then of an evening."

"Ay, does he!" answered Oliver, earnestly. "My boy, he loves every child
as if it was his very own, and it is his own in one sense. Didn't I read
you last night how he said, 'Suffer the little children to come unto me,
and forbid them not.' Why, he'd love all the young children in the world,
if they weren't hindered from coming to him."

"I should very much like to see him some day," pursued Tony,
reflectively, "and the rest of them,--Peter, and John, and them. I s'pose
they are getting pretty old by now, aren't they?"

"They are dead," said Oliver.

"All of 'em?" asked Tony.

"All of them," he repeated.