It was the first fire of the season, and they enjoyed it. It seemed to bring not only warmth but cheer. "Ain't this nice, Uncle Billy?" said Ralph, after quite a long silence. "Seems kind o' home-like an' happy, don't it?" "Ye're richt, lad! Gin a mon has a guid fire to sit to, an' a guid pipe o' 'bacca to pull awa' on, what more wull ye? eh, Ralph!" "A comfortable room like this to stay in, Uncle Billy," replied the boy, looking around on the four bare walls, the uncarpeted floor, and the rude furniture of the room, all bright and glowing now in the light of the cheerful fire. "Oh! the room's guid enook, guid enook," responded the man, without removing the pipe from his mouth. "An' a nice bed, like ours, to sleep in." "True for ye lad; tired bones rest well in a saft bed." "An' plenty to eat, too, Uncle Billy; that's a good thing to have." "Richt again, Ralph! richt again!" exclaimed Billy, enthusiastically, pushing the burning tobacco down in the bowl of his pipe. "An' the Widow Maloney, she do gi' us 'mazin' proper food, now, don't she? D'ye min' that opple pie we had for sooper, lad?" "Yes, that was good," said Ralph, gazing absently into the fire. "They's only one thing more we need, Uncle Billy, an' that's somebody to love us. Not but what you an' me cares a good deal for each other," added Ralph, apprehensively, as the man puffed vigorously away at his pipe, "but that ain't it. I mean somebody, some woman, you know, 'at'd kiss us an' comfort us an' be nice to us that way." Billy turned and gazed contemplatively at Ralph. "Been readin' some more o' them love-stories?" he asked, smiling behind a cloud of smoke. "No, I ain't, an' I don't mean that kind. I mean your mother or your sister or your wife--it'd be jes' like as though you had a wife, you know, Uncle Billy." Again, the man puffed savagely at his pipe before replying. "Wull," he said at last, "na doot it'd be comfortin' to have a guid weef to care for ye; but they're an awfu' trooble, Ralph, women is,--an awfu' trooble." "But you don't know, Uncle Billy; you ain't had no 'xperience." "No more am I like to have. I'm a gittin' too auld now. I could na get me a weef an' I wanted one. Hoot, lad! think o' your Uncle Billy wi' a weef to look after; it's no' sensiba, no' sensiba," and the man took his pipe from his mouth and indulged in a hearty burst of laughter at the mental vision of himself in matrimonial chains. "But then," persisted Ralph, "you'd have such a nice home, you know; an' somebody to look glad an' smile an' say nice things to you w'en you come home from work o' nights. Uncle Billy, I'd give a good deal if I had it, jes' to have a home like other boys has, an' mothers an' fathers an' sisters an' all that." "Wull, lad, I've done the bes' I could for ye, I've--"