She laughed a little, and stood looking from the window into the fold-yard, saying presently that she feared the frost was going to set in now in earnest, which would not be pleasant for their journey.--For this was the last day of the nephews' stay, and she was going home with them for a week. There had been no very severe cold all the winter; which was a shame because of the skating; if the ponds had a thin coating of ice on them one day, it would all melt the next. "Bless me! there's that poor child sitting out in the cold! What is he eating?--his dinner?" Her words made us look from the window. Dick Mitchel had put himself down by the distant pig-sty, and seemed to be eating something that he held in his hands. He was very white--as might be seen even from where we stood. "Mary," said she to one of the servants, "go and call that boy in." Little Mitchel came in; pinched and blue. His clothes were thin, not half warm enough for the weather; an old red woollen comforter was twisted round his neck. He took off his battered drab hat, and put his bread into it. "Is that your dinner?" asked Mrs. Jacobson. "Yes'm," said Dick, pulling the forelock of his light hair. "But why did you not go home to-day?" "Mother said there was nothing but bread for dinner to-day, and she give it me to bring away with my breakfast." "Well, why did you sit out in the cold? You might have gone indoors somewhere to eat it." "I were tired, 'm," was all Dick answered. To look at him, one would say the "tired" state was chronic. He was shivering slightly with the cold; his teeth chattered. Mrs. Jacobson took his hand, and put him to sit on a low wooden stool close to the fire, and gave him a basin of pea-soup. "Let him have more if he can eat it," she said to Mary when she went away. So the boy for once was well warmed and fed. Now, it may be thought that Mrs. Jacobson, being a kind old lady, might have told him to come in for some soup every cold day. And perhaps her will was good to do it. But it would never have answered. There were boys on the farm besides Dick, and no favour could be shown to one more than to another. No, nor to the boys more than to the men. Nor to the men on this farm more than to the men on that. Old Jacobson would have had his brother farmers pulling his ears. Those of you who are acquainted with the subject will know all this.