ast few days had, as it were, transformed little Davie from a
mere child into a thoughtful boy. Like his namesake of old, 'he was of a
beautiful countenance,' and as he caressingly smoothed his mother's pale
cheeks with his soft, gentle hands, she felt she was not desolate, since
he was left to her. Long they sat in silence. At last the boy said,--

'Mother dear, Mat Morgan says that, as I am now ten years old, it is
time for me to begin work like the other lads about here.'

'How, Davie?' she dreamily questioned, for her thoughts were wandering
far away, so that she scarcely heard what he said.

'In the pit with him,' was the reply; 'he is so kind and good, I know he
will take great care of me.'

'No, no!' she cried, clasping him yet closer to her; 'not in the cruel
mine that has robbed us of father!--no--not there!'

'Nay, mother darling,' the boy gently urged; 'it was God who took father
home--and he was ready to go! Besides,' he continued, with all the
hopefulness of youth, 'I could earn some money every week, and only
think how useful that would be!'

'But your poor father did not wish you to be a miner; he hoped you would
become a great and clever man,' the mother replied.

He hesitated for a moment. Bright visions had filled his young head of
gaining riches and honours 'some day,' that glorious time of the young,
and he had thought how proud they both would be of him, and they should
neither of them work any more, but live in a lovely home of _his_
providing, and never know care any more. And now!--he clenched his small
hands together, and choked back the big lump rising in his throat as
bravely he exclaimed,--

'And I will be a clever man, for I will learn at night when I come home,
and who knows what I may be one day. Mat Morgan says our manager was
only a poor collier lad once, and look at him now. Besides, they are all
so good to us here; they loved father dearly.'

So the boy prevailed over her fears, and in a few days he took his place
by the side of his old friend Mat Morgan, who grew to love him as his
own child. But the mother's heart was grieved when at night her boy
returned with the fair golden hair rough and tangled, the once delicate
hands torn and hardening with toil; yet the child gave no thought to
that. True, this was not the life he would have chosen, for he was a
studious boy, but still, was he not 'the bread-winner'? and it was a
proudly happy day for him when he laid his first earni