He had not proceeded far, before a wreath of pale blue smoke curling up from a little hollow indicated the presence of some dwelling-place; and a few more steps brought him to the door of a tiny cabin such as fisher-folk often inhabit. The door stood seawards, and was as usual wide open, and upon the threshold sat the boy’s mother, busily engaged in mending a broken net. She looked up as the child approached, and smiled. She had a round, motherly face, and her person, as well as the interior of her diminutive abode, was far more clean and neat than is usual with the dwellings of people of her class. “Well, David,” she said, “where hast thou been all the day, honey?” “Oh, down by the sea, mother,” he answered; and then, glancing quickly up into her face, he asked, “Be he woke up yet?” The woman shook her head. “Nay, nay, that he has not,” she answered. “Sometimes I be afeared he’ll never wake no more, for all the doctor says he will.” A look of distress clouded David’s face. “Oh, mother, don’t say that! He’s sure to wake up soon—the doctor must know best. May I go and look at un?” “Ay, do so, child, if thee wants.” And David stepped over his mother’s net and went into the inner room of the little low-roofed cabin. Upon a low pallet-bed, beneath the little west window, through which the sun was now pouring a flood of golden light, lay a child about eight years old, a little boy, with dark soft hair lying in heavy waves across his forehead, and his white face very set and still, more as if in unconsciousness than in sleep. A glance at the delicate features of the child upon the bed, the blue veins showing through the transparent skin, the short upper lip, broad, intellectual brow, and small, well-shaped hands, showed plainly enough that he was no relation to the little brown-faced fisher lad who stood beside him, looking down at him with such interest. What then had brought him to that humble abode? Who was he? and how came it that he lay there so still and motionless, untended save by the hard though motherly hands of the fisherman’s wife? Where were the boy’s own friends and kindred, who would be the most eager to be with him at such a time as this? Where was the mother, who would be first to fly to her darling, could she but see him lying there, on that hard pallet-bed, with no luxuries around him, and only strangers to minister to his need?