14 BOYS OF THE BIBLE.

if you will consider yourselves engaged for Wednesday next,
I shall esteem it a favor, as they say in books.”

The invitation was heartily and unanimously accepted,
and the merry group constituted themselves a committee to
arrange for the festivities of the coming day. ‘The most prom-
ising arrangements were made. Early in the morning there
was to be a fishing excursion, in the afternoon there was to be
boating on the river, and the rest of the day was to be spent in
home delights, winding up with a garden party and a grand
display of fireworks. What could be better?

The boys were so thoroughly absorbed in’ planning and
arranging that they were not at all aware of the approach of Dr.
Sutton, the oldest inhabitant of Enderby, till he stood right in
the midst of them. Not that his presence was in any way
objectionable, for Dr. Amos Sutton was one of those happy old
gentlemen whose good fortune it was to be loved and respected
by all the young people of the neighborhood. He had spent a
great many years in India as a missionary, and had many
strange stories to tell of what he had seen on the banks of the
Ganges, of the wonders of Calcutta, and of the sad, gloomy
lives of the poor Hindoos. He had been present at one of the
processions of the idol god Juggernaut, and had seen misguided
devotees throw themselves under the ponderous wheels of the
idol’s car. He had wonderful stories to tell, and he knew how
to tell them. But it was not for his Indian stories that Dr.
Sutton was so much beloved. He was venerable in years, but
he was. young in heart. His hair was white as snow, but his
sympathies and his affections were like the unfading evergreen
pine. The children all had a friend in Dr. Sutton. It was not
at all an uncommon thing to find the grand old missionary in
the very midst of the noisiest groups of children, as merry and
as jubilant as the rest. And when his friends would suggest