“Oh, Aunty,” he cried, “do you think I shall ever see them again? I have been so selfish, and so little grateful for all their love. Oh, I wish I had thought at Roslyn how soon I was to lose them.”
“Yes, dearest,” said Mrs Trevor, “I have no doubt we shall all meet again soon. Your father is only going for five years, you know, and that will not seem very long. And then they will be writing continually to us, and we to them. Think, Eric, how gladdened their hearts will be to hear that you and Vernon are good boys, and getting on well.”
“Oh, I will be a better boy, I will indeed,” said Eric; “I mean to do great things, and they shall have nothing but good reports of me.”
“God helping you, dear,” said his aunt, pushing back his hair from his forehead, and kissing it softly; “without His help, Eric, we are all weak indeed.”
She sighed. But how far deeper her sigh would have been had she known the future. Merciful is the darkness that shrouds it from human eyes.
Volume One--Chapter Seven.
Eric a Boarder.
We were, fair queen,
Two lads that thought there was no more behind,
But such a day to-morrow as to-day,
And to be boy eternal.
Winter’s Tale, i. 2.