“I would, indeed.  Its a shame to give a brute such victuals.”

“Poor Tiger, he deserves something good, after the way he was punished on my account.”  She brought a knife and plate saying:  “We can share wi’ each other; I don’t want to rob even a dog of his rights.”  I turned the meat over and found a bone which I cut off and gave him, and then, giving the remainder to her to put out of Tiger’s way, I stipulated that he was to have all the scraps that were left.  Then I informed her of my gift from Mr. Winthrop, or rather loan, and of the sum I purposed giving Mrs. Larkum.

“Did Mr. Winthrop give you all that money for poor folks?” she asked incredulously.

“Yes.”

“Well, I’ve heard he never give anything except through the town council.  I’ve heard he was uncommon free in that way.  But, laws!  I reckoned the first time I seen you that you’d be able afore long to wind him around your finger.  Fine manners and a handsome face, with a good heart, soon thaws out a bachelor heart.”

“You were never more mistaken in your life, Mrs. Blake.”

“May be so,” she said, as if quite unconvinced.

I turned the conversation rather abruptly:—­

“Will ten dollars be too much to entrust Mrs. Larkum with at once?”

“Dear heart, you might give her fifty, if you had it.  She’d be jest as saving of it as—­well as I’d be myself, and I call myself next door to stingy.”

“I am so glad; one likes to know the most will be made of what they give.”

“If you don’t mind, I’ll put on my shawl and go with you.”

“I was going to ask you to do so.”

“I’ll jest set on the pot for Dan’el’s dinner first.  Twelve o’clock soon comes these short days.”  Mrs. Blake threw a faded woolen shawl over her head, and taking a short path across the field we started for Mrs. Larkum’s, Tiger limping after us.

I thought Mrs. Blake’s snug kitchen quite a nest of comfort after I had taken a survey of the Larkum’s abode.

One roughly plastered room with two little closets at one side for bedrooms had to serve for home for five souls.

I felt a curious, smothered sensation at first, as I looked on the desolate surroundings—­the pale, sad-faced mother, the blind grandfather, and ragged children.  A dull fire was smouldering in the cooking stove, and beside it sat the grandfather, the baby on his knee, vainly trying to extract consolation from its own puny fist.  As I looked at him closely I saw that Mr. Bowen had an unusually fine face—­not old looking, but strangely subdued, and chastened.  I fancied from his countenance, at once serene and noble, that he had beautiful thoughts there in the darkness and poverty of his surroundings.  Mrs. Larkum was mending a child’s torn frock, her eyes as red and swollen as ever.  Her face brightened, however, when we went in.  Mrs. Blake assured me afterward it would be better than medicine to them