s, her constant
care to turn the bright side of their changed life to her children, it
seemed to him almost like indifference--like a willingness to forget.
He hated himself for the thought, and shrunk from his mother's eye, lest
she should see it and hate him too.

But all this did not last very long. It must have come to an end soon,
in one way or other, for youth grows impatient of sorrow, and lays it
down at last, and thanks to his mother's watchful care, it ended well
for David.

He had no hay-loft to which he could betake himself in these days when
he wished to be alone; but when he felt irritable and impatient, and
could not help showing it among his brothers and sisters, he used to go
out through the strip of grass and the willows into the dry bed of the
shrunken stream that flowed beneath the two bridges, and sitting down on
the large stones of which the abutment of the railroad bridge was made,
have it out with himself by the bank of the river alone. And here his
mother found him sitting one night, dull and moody, throwing sticks and
stones into the water at his feet. She came upon him before he was
aware.

"Mamma! you here? How did you come? On the track?"

"No; I followed you round by the willows and below the bridge. How
quiet it is here!"

The high embankment of the railway on one side, and the river on the
other, shut in the spot where David sat, and made it solitary enough to
suit him in his moodiest moments, and his mother saw that he did not
look half glad at her coming. But she took no notice. The great stones
that made the edge of the abutment were arranged like steps of stairs,
and she sat down a step or two above him.

"Did the sun set clear? Or were there clouds enough about to make a
picture to-night?" asked she, after a little.

"Yes, it was clear, I think. At least not very cloudy. I hardly
noticed," said Davie, confusedly.

"I wish we could see the sun set from the house."

"Yes, it is very pretty sometimes. When the days were at the longest,
the sun set behind the highest part of the mountain just in a line with
that tall elm on the other side of the river. It sets far to the left
now."

"Yes, the summer is wearing on," said his mother. And so they went on
talking of different things for a little while, and then there was
silence.

"Mamma," said David, by and by, "are you not afraid of taking cold? It
is almost dark."

"No. I have my thick shawl." And moving