"God forgive me!" and she put by her spectacles, and rose, and came to Tom. "Water's bad for thee; I'll give thee milk." And she toddled off into the next room, and brought a cup of milk and a bit of bread. Tom drank the milk off at one draught, and then looked up, revived. "Where didst come from?" said the dame. "Over Fell, there," said Tom, and pointed up into the sky. "Over Harthover? and down Lewthwaite Crag? Art sure thou are not lying?" "Why should I?" said Tom, and leant his head against the post. "And how got ye up there?" "I came over from the Place;" and Tom was so tired and desperate he had no heart or time to think of a story, so he told all the truth in a few words. "Bless thy little heart! And thou hast not been stealing, then?" "No." Bless thy little heart; and I'll warrant not. Why, God's guided the bairn, because he was innocent! Away from the Place, and over Harthover Fell, and down Lewthwaite Crag! Who ever heard the like, if God hadn't led him? Why dost not eat thy bread?" "I can't." "It's good enough, for I made it myself." "I can't," said Tom, and he laid his head on his knees, and then asked: "Is it Sunday?" "No, then; why should it be?" "Because I hear the church bells ringing so." "Bless thy pretty heart! The bairn's sick. Come wi' me, and I'll hap thee up somewhere. If thou wert a bit cleaner, I'd put thee in my own bed, for the Lord's sake. But come along here." But when Tom tried to get up, he was so tired and giddy that she had to help him and lead him. She put him in an outhouse, upon soft, sweet hay and an old rug, and bade him sleep off his walk, and she would come to him when school was over, in an hour's time. And so she went in again, expecting Tom to fall fast asleep at once. But Tom did not fall asleep. Instead of it he turned and tossed and kicked about in the strangest way, and felt so hot all over that he longed to get into the river and cool himself; and then he fell half asleep, and dreamt that he heard the little white lady crying to him, "Oh, you're so dirty; go and be washed"; and then that he heard the Irishwoman saying, "Those that wish to be clean, clean they will be." And then he heard the church bells ring so loud, close to him too, that he was sure it must be Sunday, in spite of what the old dame had said; and he would go to church, and see what a church was like inside, for he had never been in one, poor little fellow, in all his life. But the people would never let him come in, all over soot and dirt like that. He must go to the river and wash first. And he said out loud again and again, though being half asleep he did not know it, "I must be clean, I must be clean." [Illustration.]