dn't wish to trouble nobody, and if he had troubled anybody by
what he said, he asked pardon, that was all.

The milk arrived, and the child producing her little basket, and
selecting its best fragments for her grandfather, they made a hearty
meal. The furniture of the room was very homely of course--a few rough
chairs and a table, a corner cupboard with their little stock of
crockery and delf, a gaudy tea-tray, representing a lady in bright red,
walking out with a very blue parasol, a few common, coloured scripture
subjects in frames upon the wall and chimney, an old dwarf
clothes-press and an eight-day clock, with a few bright saucepans and a
kettle, comprised the whole. But everything was clean and neat, and as
the child glanced round, she felt a tranquil air of comfort and content
to which she had long been unaccustomed.

'How far is it to any town or village?' she asked of the husband.

'A matter of good five mile, my dear,' was the reply, 'but you're not
going on to-night?'

'Yes, yes, Nell,' said the old man hastily, urging her too by signs.
'Further on, further on, darling, further away if we walk till
midnight.'

'There's a good barn hard by, master,' said the man, 'or there's
travellers' lodging, I know, at the Plow an' Harrer. Excuse me, but
you do seem a little tired, and unless you're very anxious to get on--'

'Yes, yes, we are,' returned the old man fretfully. 'Further away,
dear Nell, pray further away.'

'We must go on, indeed,' said the child, yielding to his restless wish.
'We thank you very much, but we cannot stop so soon. I'm quite ready,
grandfather.'

But the woman had observed, from the young wanderer's gait, that one of
her little feet was blistered and sore, and being a woman and a mother
too, she would not suffer her to go until she had washed the place and
applied some simple remedy, which she did so carefully and with such a
gentle hand--rough-grained and hard though it was, with work--that the
child's heart was too full to admit of her saying more than a fervent
'God bless you!' nor could she look back nor trust herself to speak,
until they had left the cottage some distance behind. When she turned
her head, she saw that the whole family, even the old grandfather, were
standing in the road watching them as they went, and so, with many
waves of the hand, and cheering nods, and on one side at least not
without tears, they parted company.

They trudged forward, more slowly an