rned to bestow upon the little ones who
were taught to hate him. As the warm days of spring came on, Ilbrahim
was accustomed to remain for hours silent and inactive within hearing
of the children's voices at their play; yet, with his usual delicacy of
feeling, he avoided their notice, and would flee and hide himself from
the smallest individual among them. Chance, however, at length seemed to
open a medium of communication between his heart and theirs; it was by
means of a boy about two years older than Ilbrahim, who was injured by a
fall from a tree in the vicinity of Pearson's habitation. As the
sufferer's own home was at some distance, Dorothy willingly received him
under her roof, and became his tender and careful nurse.

Ilbrahim was the unconscious possessor of much skill in physiognomy, and
it would have deterred him, in other circumstances, from attempting to
make a friend of this boy. The countenance of the latter immediately
impressed a beholder disagreeably, but it required some examination to
discover that the cause was a very slight distortion of the mouth, and
the irregular, broken line and near approach of the eyebrows. Analogous,
perhaps, to these trifling deformities was an almost imperceptible twist
of every joint, and the uneven prominence of the breast; forming a body,
regular in its general outline, but faulty in almost all its details.
The disposition of the boy was sullen and reserved, and the village
schoolmaster stigmatized him as obtuse in intellect; although, at a
later period of life, he evinced ambition and very peculiar talents. But
whatever might be his personal or moral irregularities, Ilbrahim's heart
seized upon, and clung to him, from the moment that he was brought
wounded into the cottage; the child of persecution seemed to compare
his own fate with that of the sufferer, and to feel that even different
modes of misfortune had created a sort of relationship between them.
Food, rest, and the fresh air, for which he languished, were neglected;
he nestled continually by the bedside of the little stranger, and, with
a fond jealousy, endeavored to be the medium of all the cares that were
bestowed upon him. As the boy became convalescent, Ilbrahim contrived
games suitable to his situation, or amused him by a faculty which he had
perhaps breathed in with the air of his barbaric birthplace. It was that
of reciting imaginary adventures, on the spur of the moment, and
apparently in inexhaustible