He moved off at this. Adam seated himself on the familiar cinder heaps and grieved in his simple way, for a time feeling almost bitter. Little Nobby's deformity was one of the strange things that made Adam think. Several years before, he had the child with him at the factory one night, just old enough to walk a little. In Adam's momentary absence the boy managed to get upon a box near one of the furnace doors, and, rolling against the blistering iron, was horribly burned; yet unaccountably he did not die, but grew bent into a scarred, shapeless body, though his face was a sweet, childish one, innocent of fire. Nobby, as Adam called him after that, was a silent preacher to the stoker. When a clergyman asked him once if he was a Christian, he pointed to Nobby's back: 'I knaw there's a Lord,' he said,' or else Nobby'd died, burnt so sore thet way; an' I knaw He's good, or Nobby'd been a fool a'terward, like children thet burn theirsel's. Saved Nobby from dyin' an' from bein' worse nor dead, both, Lord meant him good.' The boy was Adam Craig's grandson. His firstborn, Tom, was wild, and went to sea--the old story--leaving wife and unborn child for his father to look to. Six years had gone--the seventh began at New Year's; the boy was born, burnt, saved alive, and not idiotic; its mother had died; Adam's life was outrunning the child's, and he would soon have to leave it to go on by itself; but his faith in his son's return never shook. 'Him'll come back,' he would say, simply, and in perfect confidence, 'I knaw't well. Lord never burnt Nobby for nawt. Him's nawt dead; him'll come back some time, I knaw.' III. Adam went back at noon, and found something else to take his thoughts: Nobby was in his pains--a sad remnant of his terrible mishap. These were irregular, and he had been free for several months, but he had been exposed to the cold to-day. There was little to be done. At such times Adam could only cry over him, hold him in his arms while he was twisting his crooked body so that it would hardly stay in or upon anything, and say: 'Poor, poor Nobby. Him'll nawt die, Katry; but how can he live? Lord send back Tom!' Jane was busy somewhere, and did not come home till evening. Her father had been turned out of his place; Nobby was in his pains again, after they had been hoping he wouldn't have any more; and to-morrow was Christmas! As she said, everything came at once. Things seemed to swim before her eyes--Nobby's pain was the most real of all--and as she could not help him, she wanted to get out of sight. It was all true. Aching and longing intolerably for something more than she had known, she had met Will Prescott--and he had loved her--he said so; and he had promised her books and pictures, and chances for travel and study.