"Thank you, my dear. I felt sure you would. Well, I shall call at the Mill House shortly. You will soon run home from here?" "Oh yes," assented Mavis. They had reached the vicarage gate, and, having shaken hands with her companion, and put her arms around Max's neck and given him an affectionate hug, she hastened on. She felt very light-hearted, and hummed a little tune happily to herself as she tripped along. But her voice suddenly ceased as she neared the Mill House and caught sight of a man's figure ahead of her, clad in a ragged suit of clothes. A pang of pity shot through her sympathetic heart. "I suppose he's a tramp or a beggar," she thought, "he looks dreadfully poor." The man turned at the sound of her light footsteps, and looked at her. She saw his face was pinched and blue with the cold, and that it wore a very wretched, dispirited expression. As she caught up to him, he spoke. "Have you a penny you could spare me, missie?" he said, in a voice which sounded weak, she thought. He was quite a young man, tall and broad-shouldered, but extremely thin. "No, I haven't," she replied, regretfully. "Oh, I'm so sorry! You do look miserably cold." "Aye, I'm cold," he agreed, with a short, bitter laugh, "cold and hungry, too." "Hungry? Oh dear, how dreadful! Do you live here—at W— I mean?" "No. I'm on the look-out for work—have been for weeks—but it's very scarce. I'm not a beggar from choice. I've been hanging around the mill in hopes of seeing the miller, thinking that he might give me a job. They told me in the village that he wanted a man to drive a waggon." "I believe he does," said Mavis. "But he's not at home this afternoon. I live at the Mill House; Mr. Grey's my uncle. Go round to the back door, I'm sure my aunt will give you something to eat." The man looked at her doubtfully, but he did as he was told. Meanwhile Mavis passed through the wicket-gate, ran up the garden path, and entered the house by the front door. She found her aunt in the parlour, engaged in darning stockings, and immediately informed her that there was a poor starving man outside. "Do give him some food, please, Aunt Lizzie, and let him warm himself by the kitchen fire," she said, pleadingly. "He wants to see Uncle John, to ask him if he can give him work. Mayn't he come in and wait? I have sent him around to the back door." "Really, Mavis, you take too much upon yourself!" cried her aunt, irascibly. "I never encourage tramps; the workhouse is always open to them. I must send this man off at once." "Aunt Lizzie, you don't mean it!" exclaimed Mavis, aghast. "Oh, you won't be so cruel! He is hungry, I am certain he is, and, oh, it will be unkind if you don't give him something to eat—if only a slice of bread!"