ents that might have been employed in
usefulness!" And thus he pursued his way till he had left the outer
country behind him, and had entered the gates that bounded his
extensive domain when, all at once, his course was stopped by
something he struck against as he was walking quickly along.

Looking down, he perceived that a sickly, hungry-looking child was
stretched across the road asleep, and that by its side sat a woman,
the picture of misery and want. Theodore felt a strong sensation of
compassion seize him as he gazed at the child, and he stooped and
lifted it from the ground.

The woman observed Theodore's eye, and said, "Ay, without help we
shall neither of us be here long!"

"I will help you," said Theodore, "tell me what I can do!"

"What can you or any one do, for a dying woman and a half-starved
child?" groaned the poor creature. "Food, food! medicine and help!"
These words burst from her in broken accents--I am dying!"

"Are you so _very_ ill?" asked Theodore, turning deadly pale; and he
murmured to himself--"Death again! I dare not see it again so soon!
Here!" continued he, thrusting gold into her hand, "now you see that I
will help you! Look, I will send you food, and you shall be brought
to the house: but let me take the child, he cannot do you good, and I
will see to him." "He must not see her die;" was Theodore's inward
thought.

"Ay, take him," muttered the woman gloomily, "and send me cordials. No
one wants to go even an hour before their time!"

Theodore obeyed almost mechanically, and lifting up the little boy, he
made a shift to carry him to the house. On arriving there, he called
for his housekeeper and desired her to take food and wine to the woman
he had left, and to bring her to the house. Then he sent another
servant for a doctor, and afterwards undertook himself the care of the
forlorn child. He placed him on a sofa in his study and sat down by
him.

"Are you ill?" was his first question.

"I don't know," was the answer.

"Are you hungry?"

"Very!"

Here Theodore got up and went to the next room, where preparations
were being made for dinner, and fetched bread and gave it to the boy,
who ate it greedily, without once lifting up his eyes. "Poor child,"
thought Theodore, "life has no _mental_ troubles for him!"

"Are you sorry your mother is so ill?" was his next inquiry.

"She's not my mother," muttered the boy.

Theodore started--"What do you mean? Are you not that woman's