es, lending them
strange beauty, but dying away instantly again into an expression of
startled suspicion.

"Yes, very ill," she answered, clasping him tenderly as he clung to her
suddenly. "He has some settled trouble that no medicine reaches, and you
see how small and light he is. Many a twelve months' babe is heavier
than he, yet he is three years old come Monday next, and he is 'cute
beyond his years, it seems to me."

"You seem very weak and weary," I rejoined. "I noticed you yesterday
with interest, sitting all the time with your boy on your knee. You must
need exercise and rest. Go and walk now a little, while you can;" and I
stretched my arms for her baby.

To her surprise, evidently, he came to me willingly--attracted, no
doubt, by the gleam of the watch-chain about my neck, and still further
propitiated by a portion of my orange, which he greedily devoured.

In the mean time the poor, pale mother took a few turns on the
quarter-deck, and, disappearing therefrom a moment, returned with a
small supply of cakes and biscuits which she had sought in the steward's
room.

An inspiration of Providence, no doubt, she thought this proceeding
later, which at the moment was only intended to anticipate the delay
attendant on all second-class meals.

These cakes, with a pains-taking diligence, if not
fore-thought--peculiar to all feeble animals, squirrels, sick children,
and the like--did he one by one cram, and compel into my pocket,
unconscious as I was at the moment of his miser-like proceeding
(instinctive, probably), which later I detected, to his infinite
rejoicing. In company with my slender purse, and bunch of useless keys,
a pencil, and a small memorandum-book, they remained _perdu_ until that
moment of accidental discovery arrived which was to test their value and
place it "far above that of rubies."

Light as a pithless nut seemed this little creature in my strong,
energetic arms, and yet his mother staggered beneath his weight.

She insisted, however, after a time, on resuming her charge of him, as
it was proper she should do, and then sat beside me, delivering herself
of a long string of complaints and grievances, after the fashion of all
second-rate, solitary people when secure of sympathy.

She overrated my benevolence on this occasion, however. I was lost in
painful reverie, and scarcely understood a word of her communication,
which I was obliged at last to cut short, for I had resolved, now that