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be glad if I were dead." This was very sinful, but he was punished; for the fever returned, and the poor sufferer knew not how long it continued; he only remembered gentle spirits (as in his delirium he fancied them) flitting round his bed, cooling with perfume his heated brow, smoothing his pillows; dropping refreshment, by slow degrees, between his parched lips, and silencing every sound that could disturb him; and who were they, those ministering angels in his hours of need? Who?-even Leopold and Caroline, his twin brother and sister: though it was the cold month of December, they entreated their papa to take them to their sick brother; they would be happy, they said, "if permitted to attend him themselves." Carry declared she would be an excellent nurse, almost as good as her mamma, who was unable to leave Howard Place in such severe weather, "she was sure of it; and she knew she should make dear Hector love her." Leopold urged that he could assist his sister, and that Hector would recover more quickly if not left to the care of hirelings; and so they quitted their brilliant home, and watched and nursed their brother for many weeks, patiently and tenderly, never tiring in their labour of love, but persevering, with the gentleness which is born of affection unto the end; until, supported upon either side by those whose birth had first disturbed the importance of " Number One," he entered his father's house happier a hundred fold than ever he had been before, cured of the selfishness which, hard to rub out, had been softened away by a sister's love and a brother's care. It was a happy meeting, and rendered more happy still by the presence of his old schoolfellow Rhody, now Lieutenant James Rhody of the Royal Navy of England.

When able to take exercise, he drove with his now beloved

family to the hill in the Deer Park, and told them the first idea that a younger brother could be a real blessing to an elder one was given him by the old man, seated on the bundle of wood; and that, although his unfortunate selfishness had so frequently overwhelmed his good feelings, he often and often thought of the poor old man's little tale. "I am so changed," he said, "as to wonder at my past, and rejoice in a new life. If I had not such a brother and sister I should, in all probability, have died in a strange inn; but certainly I should have continued violent and selfish, deserving to live unbeloved and die unlamented; a stately, cold, unsympathised with, and unsympathising "Number One."

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