His hand was suffered to remain where he had placed it. Jim glanced furtively down at the small fingers in his hard hand, and perhaps something of an unwonted nature stole into his heart, for, to the astonishment of the child, he suddenly spoke. "What did you want to know, little master?" Now Pat thought it was very grand to be addressed as "little master," and his opinion of Jim began quickly to change. He could not be as cross as he tried to make out. The child took courage, and went on with his questions, in the order in which they came into his mind. "Is it alive?" he asked, with his eyes upon the slowly moving reflectors, as they solemnly revolved round and round the centre light. "Seems like as if she was," answered the man; "her takes a deal of food, and a deal of cleaning, and a deal of watching. Her be as full of moods as wimmim folk mostly be. She can't get along without a deal of notice, no more than they can!" Pat fixed his wondering eyes on the speaker's face. He was almost as much fascinated in Jim's slow and deliberate speech as in the subject in hand. It was almost as though the mouth of the dumb had been unstopped, as though it was only in this strange place, and in the witching hour of night, that the man's tongue was unloosed. He spoke very slowly, as though it was not easy for him to find words in which to clothe his thoughts. "It's a _she_ then, is it?" asked Pat, all alive in a moment. "That's very interesting. I always thought she must be alive, but mother and father laugh at me. Perhaps they don't know so well as you--you've been here so much longer, haven't you?" "I've been a-keeping of her this five years or more," said Jim, after a long pause, in which Pat began to wonder whether he would ever speak again or not; "afore that I was in prison. They let me come out to look after her. It was so hard to get anybody to stop." Pat felt a thrill of awe run through him. He had heard of people going to prison of course, and had known many lads and men who had passed through the ordeal of going there for a time; but that seemed different from Jim's case. He wondered whether this strange gruff man had ever been a murderer, or had done some very dreadful deed. If so, was it safe to be sitting up here with him in the night, all alone? Might he not perhaps think it would be a good opportunity for throwing him down the staircase, or out over the gallery into the sea? For a moment the child felt a queer sensation of fear come over him, and then it all passed away as fast as it came, for Jim still held him by the hand, and his clasp upon his fingers felt kind and friendly. He looked up into the sullen, weather-beaten face above him with his confiding smile, and asked-- "What had they put you in prison for? Had you done anything bad?"