e echoed--"How late in the year it is growing!"

"Ay, that's true!" she replied--"Michaelmas means that summer's past."

"And it was full summer when I started on my tramp to Cornwall!" he
murmured.

"Never mind thinking about that just now," she said quickly--"You
mustn't worry your head. Mr. Bunce says you mustn't on any account worry
your head."

"Mr. Bunce!" he repeated wearily--"What does Mr. Bunce care?"

"Mr. Bunce _does_ care," averred Mary, warmly--"Mr. Bunce is a very good
little man, and he says you are a very gentle patient to deal with. He's
done all he possibly could for you, and he knows you've got no money to
pay him, and that I'm a poor woman, too--but he's been in to see you
nearly every day--so you must really think well of Mr. Bunce."

"I do think well of him--I am most grateful to him," said David
humbly--"But all the same it's _you_, Mary! You even got me the
attention of Mr. Bunce!"

She smiled happily.

"You're feeling better, David!" she declared--"There's a nice bright
sparkle in your eyes! I should think you were quite a cheerful old boy
when you're well!"

This suggestion amused him, and he laughed.

"I have tried to be cheerful in my time,"--he said--"though I've not had
much to be cheerful about."

"Oh, that doesn't matter!" she replied!--"Dad used to say that whatever
little we had to be thankful for, we ought to make the most of it. It's
easy to be glad when everything is gladness,--but when you've only got
just a tiny bit of joy in a whole wilderness of trouble, then we can't
be too grateful for that tiny bit of joy. At least, so I take it."

"Where did you learn your philosophy, Mary?" he asked, half
whimsically--"I mean, who taught you to think?"

She paused in her lace-mending, needle in hand.

"Who taught me to think! Well, I don't know!--it come natural to me.
But I'm not what is called 'educated' at all."

"Are you not?"

"No. I never learnt very much at school. I got the lessons into my head
as long as I had to patter them off by heart like a parrot,--but the
teachers were all so dull and prosy, and never took any real pains to
explain things to me,--indeed, now when I come to think of it, I don't
believe they _could_ explain!--they needed teaching themselves. Anyhow,
as soon as I came away I forgot everything but reading and writing and
sums--and began to learn all over again with Dad. Dad made me read to
him every night--all sorts of books."

"Had you a Fre