sh from the Divine Hand, that a likeness of the very
commonest sight, if represented with something of its true spirit and
life, wins a strange value, especially if the work of the great master-
artists of many years ago.

And even the painter Murillo himself, though he might pleasantly recall
on his canvas the notion of the bright-eyed, olive-tinted lad, resting
after the toil of the day, could never have rendered the free lazy smile
on his face, nor the gleam of the dog's wistful eyes and quiver of its
eager ears, far less the glow of setting sunlight that shed over all that
warm, clear, ruddy light, so full of rest and cheerfulness, beautifying,
as it hid, so many common things: the thatched roof of the barn, the
crested hayrick close beside it; the waggons, all red and blue, that had
brought it home, and were led to rest, the horses drooping their meek
heads as they cooled their feet among the weed in the dark pond;--the
ducks moving, with low contented quacks and quickly-wagging tails, in one
long single file to their evening foraging in the dewy meadows; the
spruce younger poultry pecking over the yard, staying up a little later
than their elders to enjoy a few leavings in peace, free from the
persecutions of the cross old king of the dung-hill;--all this left in
shade, while the ruddy light had mounted to the roofs, gave brilliance to
every round tuft of moss, and gleamed on the sober foliage of the old
spreading walnut tree.

'Poor lad,' said Mrs. King, 'it seems a pity he should come to such a
rough life, when he seems to have got such an education! I hope he is
not run away from anywhere.'

'You're as bad as Ellen, mother,' cried Harold, 'who will have it that
he's out of prison.'

'No, not that,' said Mrs. King; 'but it did cross me whether he could
have run away from school, and if his friends were in trouble for him.'

'He never had any friends,' said Harold, 'nor he never ran away. He's
nothing but a foundling. They picked him up under a blackthorn bush when
he was a baby, with nothing but a bit of an old plaid shawl round him.'

'Did they ever know who he belonged to?' asked Alfred.

'Never; nor he doesn't care if they don't, for sure they could be no
credit to him; but they that found him put him into the Union, and there
an old woman, that they called Granny Moll, took to him. She had but one
eye, he says; but, Mother, I do believe he never had another friend like
her, for he got to pulling u