“Make but my name thy love
Ami love that still,
And then thou lovst me,
For my name is Will."

—Shakespear Sonnets.

“HAVE I got to die, Auntie Nannie? Gladys! says I must die.” Fancy a small earnest face upturned to yours, gazing at you with two serious blue eyes belonging to a little man just four years old. Such a question from a child? For a moment I was puzzled how to reply, and taking him on my knee I said, “Why Willie, I hope you will live for a long, long time, and grow up to be a good man and be very happy and have lots of people to love you.” “But have I got to die?” again earnestly asked the child, and not knowing what had filled his mind with such a subject I called to his little cousin, Ben’s youngest girl, with whom he had been playing in the next room, and asked her what she had been saying to Willie. She, hanging her head and looking rather shame faced, replied hurriedly, “Well, I told him everybody in the world had got to die, and he would have to die too some day sure, just like my little bunny rabbit, but 1 didn’t ezackly know which day; and he’ll be put in a hole in the ground and be covered with leaves like the babes in the wood.”

I looked at the two children, such a complete contrast. Gladys, a dark-haired, rosy-cheeked, sturdy little maiden of seven, her eyes sparkling, and whole being bubbling over with life and energy. Willie, frail, delicate, spirituelle, his small white face so transparent that every thought of his intensely active brain seemed mirrored on its surface. 1 never saw a face in which the action of the mind could be so easily read. “Mind” and “Matter’’ this small pair of cousins might be aptly named.

I thought my wisest plan was to endeavor to turn their attention to some other subject, and succeeded for a time, but Willie was evidently deeply impressed. The thoughtless word of his playmate had taken a strong hold of his imagination, and when half an hour later a visitor came in, a lady whom he knew well, he ran up to her at once, saying “Have I got to die?” The lady, rather startled, looked to me for explanation, which I gave her after I had sent the children away to play. Winnie told me that his first words on reaching home that evening were “Mother, have I got to die?” Dear little Willie. Death overshadowed him even before his birth, for he was born only a few weeks after we had lost our dear father, and while our hearts were still sore from the shock of our mother’s death. No wonder that he had a hard fight for life, the darling, and that his little body is so frail and his face so white. But God heard his mother’s prayers and spared her boy, and the months and years of his short life have served but to enshrine him ever deeper in our hearts. Since “Auntie Nan” arrived here she has enjoyed (he distinction of being one of his prime favorites, and “Old Maid’s Lodge” is his second home.

Willie was born on the day his brother Ephraim was seven years old, and Winnie always calls them her twins. Bet, who was staying there for the occasion, describes their first meeting: “The children were all away at school when Willie was born, but when they came home to dinner she called Ephraim (who was my father’s namesake) and told him to come upstairs; and when he arrived she placed the baby in his arms saying, “There is your birthday present.” Poor boy, he turned first red and then white; the surprise was so great he was quite overcome, but it gave him a sense of ownership as regards the baby. Ever after he called Willie “my infant,” and would come in from school every day asking “How is my infant?" And the “twins” to this day remain the most loving of comrades.

Before we go any further I must explain to you, for fear there should be any mistake, that the “Immortal William” is not named after William. Prince of Orange. No! to English people, and especially Warwickshire people, there is only one William and that is the “Immortal Shakespeare.’’ Not but that I have the greatest respect for the “Orange William,” though I hardly ever heard his name till 1 came to this country and lived in Toronto, where the great procession of Orangemen on the twelfth of July was quite a revelation to me. How my heart throbbed with pride as I saw those hundreds of mer. marching along with the bands of music, the banners and the flowers; above all, the open Bible carried through the streets with the glorious motto waving above it, “Protestant rights we will maintain.” How it thrilled through my very being, for I am a “Protestant of the Protestants,” and glory in the name. Born of a long line of sturdy “independent” ancestry, our family motto has ever been “ for faith and freedom and in this new land of our adoption, which is happily free from so many ecclesiastical swaddling-bands and rags of ancient mummery, let us ever uphold the Divine freedom of man and “equal rights to all.”

But to return to little Willie. He visits me nearly every day, and generally arrives soon after breakfast, walking, if fine, or if wet or snowy hoisted on the shoulder of one of the older branches of the family. This morning he greeted me with the question, “Auntie, am I a nuisance?” “No; who said such a thing to you, Willie?” “Well, mamma said when I wanted Letto to carry me over here dreck’ly after brexfus’, that I must be a nuisance to you, I’m not a nuisance, am I, auntie?” regarding me with most imploring eyes. “No. my darling; tell her you are my greatest blessing; I couldn’t do without you,” and immediately his face assumed an expression of supreme content. He is the greatest little questioner, and gives me no peace; one subject succeeds another. Last week it was colors. What color is this? What color is that? “What color is the sky?” “Blue.”

“What color is my dress?” “Blue, too.” “Well,” looking from the sky to his dark blue frock with a puzzled look, “they are not alike” “No, your dress is navy blue.” A long pause, eyes fixed graveiy on the dress, then extending his legs, intently surveying them, “And are my stockings gravy blue, too ’”

To-day he arrived greatly worked up about the meaning of the word to-morrow. He burst out indignantly, “When is it s’morrow? They all keep saying ‘ s’morrow and s’morrow,’ and when I get up in the morning I say, Now it’s s’morrow, and they say, 'No, it’s s’morning.’ Then after dinner I say, Now, is it s’morrow? and they say, ‘No, it’s s’afternoon.’ When is s’morrow? That’s what I want to know.” I leave to my philosophical readers the answer to this question.

He is getting pretty well acquainted with the days of the week. His beloved twin stays horn: Saturday—no school; then he learnt it was the next day to Friday, and Sunday came after the holiday, and so on. But the months of the year are rather more trouble. The future is always September. “The violets will bloom—in September.” “The chickens will hatch—in September.” “Santa Claus will come—in September.” “I will be a big man— in September,” and so on ad libitum.

Willie for the most part of the time has to play alone, for Ephraim is at school. He is therefore indebted to his own inventive brains for means of amusement. His father keeps a horse, cow and pig, and these animals are most attentively watched and copied by the Immortal William. Their every action is studied and imitated to perfection. He takes turns in representing the various animals. He is generally accosted on his arrival in the morning with the question, “Well, what are you to-day, Willie?” and the reply is, I am a cow, or horse, or perhaps a colt, as the case may be. Then every action of the chosen animal is faithfully and cleverly represented. Honestly, I, being a greenhorn, have become familiar with all the motions of the animals, not from my own observations of them, but from Willie’s antics. Often I fairly laugh aloud as I pass cows and horses on the roadside and see them making exactly the movements which Willie has gone through for our amusement. To see him lick his shoulder, toss his head, kick up his heel, chew his cud, is really too ridiculous.

Of course, if he is horse or cow, after simply announcing the fact the rest is all dumb show. You might ask him a dozen questions, but the only reply would be a toss of the head, a whinny or a moo as the case might require. If he is a cow he must needs have a bell, also, important still, a long tail. Anything lying around at all resembling that useful appendage is immediately appropriated for that purpose. His mother had a good laugh the other day. There was a lady staying there, and one morning she, not being very well, did not get up to breakfast. Willie, running past her bedroom door and peeping in, saw a long hair switch lying on the dressing table. He trotted down to his mother in the greatest state of excitement. “Oh, mamma! mamma! there’s a lovely cow’s tail in Miss Brown’s room on the table. Oh. do ask her to lend it me. I won’t lose it; I’ll be awful careful.” "Bless the boy,” she said, “that would never do; it is hair; she wears it herself.” “Wears it herself!” he replied, gazing at her with eyes wide with astonishment, “what does she want with a tail? Shes no cow,” (the last with great scorn.) “Do ask her to lend it me, mamma, just for one day.” Poor Willie! she had to send him away quite cast down. She would not have had Miss Brown know of Willie’s longing desires for anything, because she was rather a touchy person, and for the next day or two Winnie fairly trembled at meal times when she saw the child’s eyes, full of admiration, steadfastly fixed on the summit of Miss

Brown’s cranium, whereon reposed in all its glossy stateliness the much coveted cow’s tail Wiilie, after recovering from his disappointment, turned his thoughts and ambition in another direction, and one day, soon after, came to his mother with two or three pieces of rag rolled up like small sausages, and wanted them sewed down the front of his little dress. After this was done he ran outside, falling on all fours on the grass, calling out as he did so, “Now, I'm the cow; just come and milk me!” This milking proved a serious business: being a novelty, every one was pressed into the service, till the thing got rather monotonous, except to the young cow, who would come sometimes, almost in tears, saying to Winnie, "Ephraim won’t milk me”; and when she appealed to the recreant he would toss his head and say, “I can’t be milking him all the time,” so the poor little cow had sometimes to remain unmilked.

When Willie personated a horse he always wanted work, so he used to draw chips on a tiny sleigh and bring them into the kitchen, always waiting patiently, if I was engaged, till I was at liberty to unload them and put them in the wood-box. This, of course, the horse never did. Occasionally he was a frisky young colt, and then I had to personate the old “mother horse.” I used to call the sofa the stable, and generally coaxed the young colt to take his afternoon nap by lying down with him by my side. Willie’s candid remarks to visitors and strangers are often the source of amusement, though sometimes he puts us to confusion by being anything but complimentary. He said to a maiden lady of middle age who was here last week, and was remarking on his fondness for me, “Wouldn’t you like to have me for an auntie, too, Willie”? she asked him. “No!” he said, most emphatically, but after looking her over critically for a minute, added, “I would have you for a grandmother; grandmothers die soon, you know.” The lady looked anything but flattered, though I tried to smooth it over by saying he had never known his grandmother, had been told she was dead, and so he had got hold of the idea of death in association with the name.

Another spinster, who wore spectacles, he accosted with the remark, “Do you call yourself a young lady, Miss Jones?” “Well, yes, Willie,” she said, bridling and coloring (for Willie had put the emphasis strongly on the young), “I suppose I am what you might call a young lady.” “What!” he said, “with those specs?” with the most innocent look of surprise imaginable. Even at the risk of offending, we could not help but laugh.

Auntie Sue sent him at Christmas a book of animal pictures when he was three years old, and these proved a source of never-ending amusement. The questions he asks about the various animals are innumerable, and he is quick to see the resemblance between them and human beings. The following spring he was playing in their garden, which adjoins the Government road, when he came running in, calling loudly, “Mamma., mamma! come quick, there’s a monkey just gone up the road, a great big monkey! running so fast!" She ran to the window, and just caught a glimpse of—what think you, my readers, you young dudes in short pants and fancy stockings? A man on a bicycle! The first the child had ever seen and such was his impression.

I think the monkeys in his book were the greatest favorites. There was one big ourang-outang, standing by a stump, which greatly interested him, and came near being the cause of serious offence to an old friend of his father’s. This gentleman, who never shaved and was very hairy, and also short-sighted, called at their house one day, and as he had never seen Willie, took special notice of him, taking him on his knee and asking him questions; Willie meanwhile fixing his eyes on him with the expression of a snake looking at its charmer. At last the gentleman said, “You don’t know my name, my little man, now do you?” “In course I do,” responded Willie, promptly, for he was recovering from his shyness, “you are the monkey man, the big hairy monkey man! I’ve got your picture in my book, I’ll go and fetch it,” suiting the action to the word, but his mother caught hold of him and adroitly changed the subject.

Willie’s mother is trying to instil into his youthful mind some of the rudiments of theology, but is often brought up short by the aptness of his replies and the quaint ideas of his little brain. For instance, God he calls the “Man in the sky,” and he is continually asking such questions as, “Will the Man in the sky laugh and be glad when he sees all the wood your little horse has drawn for you, mamma?” “Will the Man in the sky be sorry if I cry when the soap goes in my eyes?” Satan he alludes to with a face of awe as “that bad boy that we mustn’t say his name.”

While I am writing this he is beside me, and the questions come thick and fast. I will close this chapter with reporting our conversation for the next ten minutes.

I had given him two or three cards to look at to keep him quiet, but they do not seem to have that effect. He has selected one, an Easter card, the usual thing, angel ringing the bells, doves flying round and so on, “Auntie, what house is this?” “That is a church.” “What is a church, auntie?” “God’s house.” “Aren’t all the houses God’s, auntie?” “Yes, they ought to be.” “Are all the people that go to church God’s, too?” “Well, we hope so.” “What is this woman doing?" pointing to the angel. “That’s an angel ringing the bells.” “Do angels always go round in their nighties, auntie? Aren’t they cold? Do their feathers keep them warm?” “I guess so,” I reply. A pause for a moment, followed by another examination of the card. “What is she ringing the bells for, auntie?” “Because it’s Easter,” I say shortly. “Are these the Easters, auntie?” pointing to the doves. “Are all these little Easters flying round?” “No, those are doves.” “Ducks, auntie! Can they swim?” “Doves! Doves!” I say, rather impatiently, but no one, however crusty, can ever be vexed with Willie; he is so sensitive to a word of blame, and so anxious to please, that we have to be extremely careful not to hurt his feelings. If we speak harshly to any one in his presence, even the dog, the corners of his little mouth go down and the eyes fill with tears. But it is time I ended this chapter, so for the present we will wish Willie good-bye.