n a very old Book--even in its human histories the
most pathetic of all books--which runs thus:

"And it came to pass when he had made an end of speaking unto Saul,
that the soul of Jonathan was knit unto the soul of David; and Jonathan
loved him as his own soul."

And this day, I, a poorer and more helpless Jonathan, had found my
David.

I caught him by the hand, and would not let him go.

"There, get in, lads--make no more ado," said Abel Fletcher, sharply,
as he disappeared.

So, still holding my David fast, I brought him into my father's house.

CHAPTER II

Dinner was over; my father and I took ours in the large parlour, where
the stiff, high-backed chairs eyed one another in opposite rows across
the wide oaken floor, shiny and hard as marble, and slippery as glass.
Except the table, the sideboard and the cuckoo clock, there was no
other furniture.

I dared not bring the poor wandering lad into this, my father's
especial domain; but as soon as he was away in the tan-yard I sent for
John.

Jael brought him in; Jael, the only womankind we ever had about us, and
who, save to me when I happened to be very ill, certainly gave no
indication of her sex in its softness and tenderness. There had
evidently been wrath in the kitchen.

"Phineas, the lad ha' got his dinner, and you mustn't keep 'un long. I
bean't going to let you knock yourself up with looking after a
beggar-boy."

A beggar-boy! The idea seemed so ludicrous, that I could not help
smiling at it as I regarded him. He had washed his face and combed out
his fair curls; though his clothes were threadbare, all but ragged,
they were not unclean; and there was a rosy, healthy freshness in his
tanned skin, which showed he loved and delighted in what poor folk
generally abominate--water. And now the sickness of hunger had gone
from his face, the lad, if not actually what our scriptural Saxon terms
"well-favoured," was certainly "well-liking." A beggar-boy, indeed! I
hoped he had not heard Jael's remark. But he had.

"Madam," said he, with a bow of perfect good-humour, and even some sly
drollery, "you mistake: I never begged in my life: I'm a person of
independent property, which consists of my head and my two hands, out
of which I hope to realise a large capital some day."

I laughed. Jael retired, abundantly mystified, and rather cross. John
Halifax came to my easy chair, and in an altered tone asked me how I
felt, and if he could do anythi