w path that led away across the
meadows, and, as he went, there met him a gentle wind laden with the
sweet, warm scent of ripening hops, and fruit.

On he went, and on,--heedless of his direction until the sun grew low,
and he grew hungry; wherefore, looking about, he presently espied a nook
sheltered from the sun's level rays by a steep bank where flowers
bloomed, and ferns grew. Here he sat down, unslinging his knap-sack, and
here it was, also, that he first encountered Small Porges.

CHAPTER IV

_How Small Porges in looking for a fortune for another, found an Uncle
for Himself instead_

The meeting of George Bellew and Small Porges, (as he afterward came to
be called), was sudden, precipitate, and wholly unexpected; and it
befell on this wise:

Bellew had opened his knap-sack, had fished thence cheese, clasp-knife,
and a crusty loaf of bread, and, having exerted himself so far, had
fallen a thinking or a dreaming, in his characteristic attitude,
i.e.:--on the flat of his back, when he was aware of a crash in the
hedge above, and then, of something that hurtled past him, all arms and
legs, that rolled over two or three times, and eventually brought up in
a sitting posture; and, lifting a lazy head, Bellew observed that it was
a boy. He was a very diminutive boy with a round head covered with
coppery curls, a boy who stared at Bellew out of a pair of very round,
blue eyes, while he tenderly cherished a knee, and an elbow. He had been
on the brink of tears for a moment, but meeting Bellew's quizzical gaze,
he manfully repressed the weakness, and, lifting the small, and somewhat
weather-beaten cap that found a precarious perch at the back of his
curly head, he gravely wished Bellew "Good afternoon!"

"Well met, my Lord Chesterfield!" nodded Bellew, returning the salute,
"are you hurt?"

"Just a bit--on the elbow; but my name's George."

"Why--so is mine!" said Bellew.

"Though they call me 'Georgy-Porgy.'"

"Of course they do," nodded Bellew, "they used to call me the same, once
upon a time,--

Georgy Porgy, pudding and pie
Kissed the girls, and made them cry,

though I never did anything of the kind,--one doesn't do that sort of
thing when one is young,--and wise, that comes later, and brings its own
care, and--er--heart-break." Here Bellew sighed, and hacked a piece from
the loaf with the clasp-knife. "Are you hungry, Georgy Porgy?" he
enquired, glancing up at the boy who had risen, and was remo