the rest.  They were sitting in silence after the close, when Harry started up suddenly, saying:  “I don’t want God to love me, if he does not love everybody;” and, bursting into tears, hurried out of the room.  Mrs. Elton was awfully shocked at his wickedness.  Euphra, hastened after him; but he would not return, and went supperless to bed.  Euphra, however, carried him some supper.  He sat up in bed and ate it with the tears in his eyes.  She kissed him, and bade him good night; when, just as she was leaving the room, he broke out with: 

“But only think, Euphra, if it should be true!  I would rather not have been made.”

“It is not true,” said Euphra, in whom a faint glimmer of faith in God awoke for the sake of the boy whom she loved —­ awoke to comfort him, when it would not open its eyes for herself.  “No, Harry dear, if there is a God at all, he is not like that.”

“No, he can’t be,” said Harry, vehemently, and with the brightness of a sudden thought; “for if he were like that, he wouldn’t be a God worth being; and that couldn’t be, you know.”

Euphra knelt by her bedside, and prayed more hopefully than for many days before.  She prayed that God would let her know that he was not an idol of man’s invention.

Till friendly sleep came, and untied the knot of care, both Euphra and Harry lay troubled with things too great for them.  Even in their sleep, the care would gather again, and body itself into dreams.  The first thought that visited Harry when he awoke, was the memory of his dream:  that he died and went to heaven; that heaven was a great church just like the one Mrs. Elton went to, only larger; that the pews were filled with angels, so crowded together that they had to tuck up their wings very close indeed —­ and Harry could not help wondering what they wanted them for; that they were all singing psalms; that the pulpit by a little change had been converted into a throne, on which sat God the Father, looking very solemn and severe; that Jesus was seated in the reading-desk, looking very sad; and that the Holy Ghost sat on the clerk’s desk, in the shape of a white dove; that a cherub, whose face reminded him very much of a policeman he knew, took him by the shoulder for trying to pluck a splendid green feather out of an archangel’s wing, and led him up to the throne, where God shook his head at him in such a dreadful way, that he was terrified, and then stretched out his hand to lay hold on him; that he shrieked with fear; and that Jesus put out his hand and lifted him into the reading-desk, and hid him down below.  And there Harry lay, feeling so safe, stroking and kissing the feet that had been weary and wounded for him, till, in the growing delight of the thought that he actually held those feet, he came awake and remembered it all.  Truly it was a childish dream, but not without its own significance.  For surely the only refuge from heathenish representations of God under Christian forms, the only refuge from