The consciousness that Ernie was at my knee at last aroused me from the indulgence of my grief, and I looked down to meet his compassionate and inquiring eyes fixed upon me with a masterful expression I have never seen in any other childish face.  It thrilled me to the heart.

“What Mirry cry for—­is God mad with Mirry?” he asked at length.

“It seems so, Ernie—­yet oh, no, no!  I cannot, will not believe in such injustice on the part of the Most High!” I pursued in sad soliloquy, with folded hands, and shaking head; and musing eyes fixed on the fire before me:  “My God will not forsake me!”

“Did the bad man hurt Mirry?” he asked, leaning with both arms on my lap and putting up his hand to touch my face.

“Yes, very cruelly, Ernie.”

“Big giant will come and kill him, and fayways put him in the river, and the old wolf wat eat Red Riding Hood eat him, and then the devil will roast him for his dinner.”

I could but smile, albeit through my tears, at the climax of these threats which seemed to delight and stir the inmost soul of Ernie.  His eyes flashed, his cheek crimsoned, his wide red mouth curled with disdainful ire, disclosing the small, pointed pearls within; he seemed transfigured.

“And Ernie! what will Ernie do for Mirry?” I asked, as I watched the workings of his expressive face.  “Will Ernie let the wicked man kill Mirry?”

He looked at his small hands and arms, then extended them wistfully.

“Ernie will tell good Jesus,” he said, “and he will make Ernie grow big—­ever so big—­to tie the man and put him in a bag like Clayton’s cat.”

The burlesque was irresistible, and none the less so that the child was so direfully in earnest.  To his infant imagination no worse disaster than had befallen Clayton’s cat could be devised.  This animal, adored by him, had been bagged and exiled, perhaps drowned for aught I know, for stealing cheese from the cupboard sacred to Clayton, by that vengeful potentate, to the despair of Ernie.  The idolized kittens, too, which had followed her, had disappeared with their mother, and days of infant melancholy ensued, during which the canaries before referred to were brought as substitutes.  The faithful heart still clung to its feline passion, it was evident, though for weeks the memory of that hapless cat had been ignored and its name unmentioned.

I believe, after my momentary wrath was over, I should have been content with the punishment suggested by the child, as sufficient even for Basil Bainrothe.

FOOTNOTES: