Holiday-time has once more come round, and Benvourd House rings with the voices of the assembled youngsters. Ronald is there, bringing with him from school not only a goodly number of prizes, but a letter from Dr. Bowles of high commendation for the good influence he has exercised over the other boys.
And Eric has also returned from his Edinburgh visit, which had lasted some months. At times there is a more thoughtful expression on his face than of yore, which Mrs. Macleod notes with satisfaction, though the cause of it has not been disclosed: only the All-seeing One, who directed the boy's course to the house where, to human eye, He was shut out, knows the real cause of the grave though as yet unsatisfied look that at times flits over the face of the heedless boy.
As in the court of Ahab, there dwelt a God-fearing Obadiah, and in the corrupt palace of a Cesar, there were souls who loved and served the Lord Jesus. So in the household of the Rosses, whose God seemed to be the prince of this world, there lived a child whose heart the Lord had opened—a little dark-eyed boy of Spanish origin, the orphan boy of a dead sister of Mrs. Ross, who had married a young Spaniard, and in her life-time had been cast off and disowned by her friends for the misalliance, as they termed it.
But when both father and mother died, leaving their only child homeless and penniless, Mr. Ross had insisted on taking the orphan and bringing him up with their own children. And so, at the age of six years, little Pedro became an inmate of their home. A child too thoughtful for his years, shy, and sensitive, he never really amalgamated with the family: kindly treated in one way, neglected in others, he lived in a world of his own, and wove fanciful dreams, and created heroes and heroines for himself; and even in the midst of his lessons, visions of the sunny land of his birth and his childhood were ever before him.
No one understood him; and life was beginning to cloud around him, when sickness came, not serious, but lingering. Into the house from which He had been tried to be excluded, the Lord entered, and taking the little orphan boy by the hand, led him apart, so to speak, and spoke comfortably to him there; and from that bed of sickness, the child rose no longer sad. A new love had come into his lonely heart—a new, never-failing, never-changing Friend had become his; memories of almost forgotten teaching had come back to him, and the Saviour his parents had loved and served had whispered the "Peace, be still," to the weary young heart.
Few noticed the change, unless it were Alick and Clara. "Pedro looks happier now," they said, "and is far more obliging than he used to be."
And his tutor remarked, "Pedro begins to learn fast now, and no longer dreams over his lessons. Take care, or he will outstrip you all."
But Pedro dreamed still, only not in lesson-time and made heroes of those who took his fancy; and so it came to pass that when the little Highland boy came amongst them, and spoke kind words to the child who was an orphan like himself, Pedro exalted him into a hero, and almost worshipped him. And when, after a short acquaintance, he saw that Eric shrank with amazement from many of the ways of the house, and refused to spend the Sundays in idleness or play—keeping the promise he had given his uncle and aunt, that he would set aside some portion of the Lord's day for Bible study—little Pedro's heart beat with joy as he thought he had found one who had learned to love Jesus, and would help him on in the heavenward path.
Eric saw this, and shrank from accepting a character to which he had no claim: for earthly goods, not heavenly ones, were Eric's ambition; the crown of the world's wealth, not the unfading, one of glory, was the crown he longed to wear, though the influence of his Christian upbringing still lingered in his heart, and made him grieved at living in a house where God's blessing was not daily sought in family prayer as at Benvourd, and God's day not reverenced and kept holy as it was there.
All this he told Pedro; but the boy remained unshaken in his belief that his new friend was a Christian, and often appealed to him on matters of difficulty.