When it was quite dark he went slowly homeward. Mrs. Hunt's door stood open and he stopped to get the key which Nan was to leave there for him. Jimmy sprang up and brought it to him, and Mrs. Hunt gave him a kind word or two and asked him to come in and sit awhile, but he said he was tired, and taking the key, he crossed the hall and unlocked Nan's door. As he closed it behind him he gave a little start, for he saw something move over by the window. The next instant he realised that it was only Nan's chair which had rocked a little from the jar of the closing door. The room was unlighted except for the faint glimmer near the open windows.
As Theo sat down in the rocking-chair, a wave of loneliness and homesickness swept over him. Nan and Little Brother had made all the home feeling he had ever known, and never before had he felt so absolutely alone and friendless as he did to-night.
Tag seemed to share the feeling too. He went sniffing about the room, evidently searching for the two who were gone, and finally, with a long breath like a sigh, he dropped down beside the rocking-chair and rubbed his head against his master's hand with a low, troubled whine. Theodore patted the rough head as he said,
"Pretty lonesome, ain't it, old fellow?" and Tag rapped the floor with his tail and whined again.
For a long time the boy sat there gravely thinking. At last, with a sigh, he said to himself, "Might's well go to bed. Don't feel like doin' anything to-night."
He was used to undressing in the dark and he did not light the lamp, but as he was about to get into bed his hand touched something smooth and stiff that was lying on the pillow.
"It's a letter," he exclaimed, wonderingly, and he hastened to light the lamp.
"Oh!" he cried, breathlessly, as he saw the bold, firm handwriting. "It's from the bishop."
His cheeks were flushed, his eyes shining and his fingers fairly shaking with excitement as he held the letter carefully in his hands, reading and rereading the address.
"THEODORE BRYAN,
Care of MRS. MARTIN."