It is hardly fair to say that Bob's hands were dirty, but they were very coarse in grain, and discoloured, the nails were worn down, and the fingers were blue with chilblains where they were not red with the chaps which roughened them; and those were the hands which took hold of Rich's and held it for a few moments against the boy's cheek; while he rubbed the said cheek softly against the smooth palm, his bright eyes looking up at her as a spaniel might at its mistress. In fact, there was something dog-like and fawning in the ways of the lad, till the hand was drawn away. "So'm I proud on him, Miss. He is a good 'un. For it's like 'evin being here. Why, I've been here two years now, and he never kicked me once." "And used you to be kicked before you came here, Bob?" said Rich, feeling amused, in spite of herself, at the boy's estimate of true happiness. "Kicked, Miss? Ha, ha, ha! Why, it was 'most all kicks when it warn't pots. Old woman never kicked me; but when she'd had a drop, and couldn't get no more, she was allus cross, and then she'd hit you with what come first--pewter pot, poker, anything, if you didn't get out of the way." Rich's brow contracted, and then for the moment the pain neutralised that of the mind. "But she didn't often hit me," said Bob, grinning. "I used to get too sharp for her; and she didn't mean no harm. Want me to do anything, Miss?" "No, Bob, no," said Rich, turning away to the shelves, where the bottles stood as in a chemist's shop. "Poor boy! and the place is to him like heaven!" she thought. "Want some physic, Miss?" said the boy excitedly; "which on 'em? I knows 'most all on 'em now." "I want the belladonna," said Rich, with her face contracted once more. "Why, that's one o' they little bottles up a-top where they're all pisons! Whatcher want that for?" said Bob suspiciously. Then, as he read her countenance. "Whatcher got--toothache?" Rich nodded. "Here, hold hard! you can't reach it, Miss. Let me get on a chair. Oh, I say! Let me pull it out." The boy's eager sympathy and desire to afford relief, grotesque as it was, seemed so genuine, so grateful to the lonely girl, that she smiled at her poor coarse companion's troubled face. "No, no, Bob," she said gently. "Wish I could have it instead," he cried. "I do, s'elp me!" "It will be better soon, Bob," she said, as the boy climbed up and obtained the little stoppered bottle from the top shelf. "That's good stuff for it, Miss," said the boy. "Bottle's quite clean. I dusted all on 'em yesterday. Here, I know! let me put some on." "You, Bob?" said Rich. "Yes, Miss; I know. I've seen the doctor do it twiced to gals as come and wanted him to pull out their teeth, and he wouldn't. I'll show yer." Bob ran to a drawer and took out a camel-hair pencil, and operated with it dry upon his own face.