A Soldier's Son

by Maude Mary Butler

Carol had to listen again and again to all the wonderful and mysterious things which always happened at the Manor on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Price lists and illustrated catalogues were the only books in requisition after lessons were over. The elder children wondered how they could have bought their Christmas presents if there were no parcel post. Carol was especially the helper and confederate of the three little girls in the nursery. He assisted them in choosing their "surprises," wrote the letters, and enclosed the postal orders; and certainly, from the marvellous list of things they were able to purchase, their little accumulated heap of pennies must, in some magic way, have changed into sovereigns in his hands. The joyful excitement of the three little girls, when the parcels arrived, gave Carol the greatest pleasure he had ever known. Only Nurse was allowed to be present when the parcels were opened, and she promised to lock them securely away where no one could catch a glimpse until they were brought out on Christmas eve.

It wanted only one week to Christmas day, when Rosebud came to the school-room one morning, saying: "Mover wants 'ou, Tarol."

Carol went at once to his aunt's room. She was sitting with an open letter in her hand, a rather graver than usual expression on her face. "Carol, dear," she said, "for some little time I have been thinking I ought to let you go home for Christmas. It seems to me it is what your dear father would wish; but I could not let you take the long journey alone and there seemed no other way until this morning. I have just received a letter from a dear old friend in which she mentions that she will be travelling to Exeter in two days' time. So I could take you to London to meet her there, and you could travel with her to Exeter, where Miss Desmond might meet you. I do not like to part with you, even for a month or six weeks, my 'little porter at the door of thought.'"

"Auntie, it won't make any difference if I am here, or in Devonshire. I can still bar the door to error."

"Yes, dear; I believe you can. It is really not that only. I am thinking we shall all miss you so. You seem to be everyone's confederate for their Christmas surprises. Would you rather go, or stay, dear?"

"I should be happy to stay here, or happy to go home for Christmas, Auntie."

"Yes; I think you would, dear. So we must consider other people. Miss Desmond, I know, would rejoice to have you, and it seems the right of both tenants and servants to have the 'little master' amongst them at Christmas. So I have decided it will be right to let you go."

But when this decision was made known in the school-room and nursery there were great lamentations. No one had given a thought to the possibility of Carol not being with them for the Christmas festivities; and Mrs. Mandeville was besought again and again not to let Carol go home before Christmas.

But, having well considered the matter, she was firm. A telegram was at once despatched to Miss Desmond apprising her of the arrangement. The answer that quickly came satisfied Mrs. Mandeville that she had been led to make a right decision. Brief but expressive was Miss Desmond's wire: "Great rejoicings on receipt of news. Will gladly meet Carol at Exeter."

There was yet another little person to whom the news was not joyful. Eloise's lips quivered and her blue eyes filled with tears when she heard. Carol was so much to her, and she to him. She thought of him as a brother; and a sister of his own name could not have been more tenderly loved by the boy. The bond between them was closer and dearer than that of human relationship.