friend. I'm awfully fond of her," Peter
said. He made the avowal without the slightest embarrassment--from his
infancy, probably, he had not known what it was to feel shy. "Before I
got that berth at Clomayne's, I should have had a rough time at home if
it hadn't been for Cicely. My aunt and my cousins didn't believe in me,
you see, sir. Cicely always did."

The physician looked across to the bookstall where the child still
stood, watchful of him and Peter beneath the shadowing brim of her hat.
Obeying a good-natured impulse, he crossed to her and laid a hand on
her shoulder, and called her "Cicely," and said he had been hearing she
was fond of reading.

"We both are," Cicely said, with a calm, middle-aged self-possession.
"It is the thing Peter and I like best in the world."

"And what sort of reading?" the doctor asked; and learnt that Peter
liked books of adventure and happy stories, but that Cicely loved
poetry, and liked best stories that were sad.

"They make her cry, sir," Peter explained. "She cries, and cries--don't
you, Cicely?--but she likes them too."

So a kind doctor, looking over the wares displayed, bought a volume of
Longfellow's poems, which he gave the girl--he knew nothing of poetry,
but was sure Longfellow must be safe, as his mother had liked him--and
he got for the boy, Wells's _Sea Lady_.

"I don't read such things, myself," he said, "but I've gathered from
the newspapers the man has a quite creditable acquaintance with
science, and does not write sentimental rubbish."

Cicely, regarding the donor with an unsmiling face, said--"Thank you
very much," in her staid, middle-aged way; but Peter, using his tongue
volubly, overwhelmed him with thanks.

"It is kind of you!" he said fervently. "I shall always treasure the
book, and so will Cicely hers. We go to the Library--we've got a
splendid one, you know, in Edmonton, Passmore Edwards gave us. Before I
got to Clomayne's--they didn't want me at home, and I had nowhere else
to go--I spent most of my days in the Library. Of course I've read H.
G. Wells, and I learnt a lot of him by heart to tell Cicely, but I love
to have him for my own. I have very much to be grateful to you for,
sir, and I shall be grateful while I live."

"For how long will that be, poor fellow, I wonder!" the doctor said to
himself as he walked away. He had done the poor boy a kindness, and he
let his mind dwell on him with a pitying pleasure. It was hard that
Fate should