Harry was a fine, open-hearted young man, with a large amount of common sense. He was a Christian in the fullest meaning of the word; and he really strove, like his divine Master, to "go about doing good."
"Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might," was, as the vicar loved to say, the motto of Harry's life. His bright, cheery ways made him a special favourite with all the youngsters at the Grove; and a groan of vexation was heard from the boys when it was announced that Harry Lascelles was about to start as naval doctor on a long expedition to the African coast.
He was the first to break the silence when he also discovered that Priscilla and he were left alone with the little one whom they had unitedly promised to train for God. He stepped forward and, with the freedom of an old friend, laid his hand on the girl's shoulder.
"Poor Sissy!" he said (using unconsciously her mother's pet name for her). "I am so sorry to have to go and leave you all in this time of sorrow. I, too, feel as if I had lost a mother in dear Mrs. Warner, and am so glad your father has asked me to be godfather to the wee motherless babe; but the real charge, Sissy, will devolve on you. You have, indeed, a great work before you in the care of all these children, for it is to you, far more than to Miss Vernon, they will look to fill their mother's place. And such a mother! You have, indeed, a work to do which even the angels might envy!"
The girl looked up, restraining with an effort the choking sob which the sound of her pet name had evoked.
"Yes," she said half proudly, "I have a work to do, Harry; and I am determined to do it—to prove to my father that, though 'only a girl,' I can do as much as a man, ay, and more than many of them can."
The words and tone startled the young man, and he answered quietly, "I do trust, Prissy,—" (he had dropped the pet name now), "that you will indeed prove to your father that, because you are 'only a girl,' you can do a work in which the greatest of men would fail; but take care you find out what that work really is."
She gave no answer, but said abruptly, "And you go to-morrow, Harry, and may not be back for years?"
"Even so," he replied. "Don't forget me, Prissy. And one word ere I say good-bye: look lovingly after the boys. They will sorely miss their mother," and he lowered his voice as he spoke. "Make the evenings at home as cheerful as you can for Lewis."
"Why for Lewis?" she said half-angrily, for he was not her favourite brother, and she fancied that others as well as her father thought more of him than of Austin.