impending trouble, came
over her, making her forget everything, and hardly notice the next act
of the boy.

It is hardly fair to say that Bob's hands were dirty, but they were very
coarse in grain, and discoloured, the nails were worn down, and the
fingers were blue with chilblains where they were not red with the chaps
which roughened them; and those were the hands which took hold of Rich's
and held it for a few moments against the boy's cheek; while he rubbed
the said cheek softly against the smooth palm, his bright eyes looking
up at her as a spaniel might at its mistress. In fact, there was
something dog-like and fawning in the ways of the lad, till the hand was
drawn away.

"So'm I proud on him, Miss. He is a good 'un. For it's like 'evin
being here. Why, I've been here two years now, and he never kicked me
once."

"And used you to be kicked before you came here, Bob?" said Rich,
feeling amused, in spite of herself, at the boy's estimate of true
happiness.

"Kicked, Miss? Ha, ha, ha! Why, it was 'most all kicks when it warn't
pots. Old woman never kicked me; but when she'd had a drop, and
couldn't get no more, she was allus cross, and then she'd hit you with
what come first--pewter pot, poker, anything, if you didn't get out of
the way."

Rich's brow contracted, and then for the moment the pain neutralised
that of the mind.

"But she didn't often hit me," said Bob, grinning. "I used to get too
sharp for her; and she didn't mean no harm. Want me to do anything,
Miss?"

"No, Bob, no," said Rich, turning away to the shelves, where the bottles
stood as in a chemist's shop. "Poor boy! and the place is to him like
heaven!" she thought.

"Want some physic, Miss?" said the boy excitedly; "which on 'em? I
knows 'most all on 'em now."

"I want the belladonna," said Rich, with her face contracted once more.

"Why, that's one o' they little bottles up a-top where they're all
pisons! Whatcher want that for?" said Bob suspiciously. Then, as he
read her countenance. "Whatcher got--toothache?"

Rich nodded.

"Here, hold hard! you can't reach it, Miss. Let me get on a chair. Oh,
I say! Let me pull it out."

The boy's eager sympathy and desire to afford relief, grotesque as it
was, seemed so genuine, so grateful to the lonely girl, that she smiled
at her poor coarse companion's troubled face.

"No, no, Bob," she said gently.

"Wish I could have it instead," he cried. "I do, s'elp me!"

"It