"Where's Ralphie? Is he watching it, father? What is he doing?" The little one had dropped on hands and knees before the kitten, and was gazing up into its face. The mother leaned over him with a face that would have beamed with sunshine if the sun of sight had not been missing. "Is he looking? Doesn't he want to coddle it?" The little chap had pushed his nose close to the nose of the kitten, and was prattling to it in various inarticulate noises. "Boo--loo--lal-la--mama." "Isn't he a darling, father?" "It's a winsome wee thing," said the old man, still standing, with drooping head, over the group on the hearth. The mother's face saddened, and she turned away. Then from the opposite side of the kitchen, where she was making pretense to take plates from a plate-rack, there came the sound of suppressed weeping. The old man's eyes followed her. "Nay, lass; let's have a sup of broth," he said, in a tone that carried another message. The young woman put plates and a bowl of broth on the table. "To think that I can never see my own child, and everybody else can see him!" she said, and then there was another bout of tears. The charcoal-burner supped at his broth in silence. A glistening bead rolled slowly down his wizened cheek: and the interview on the hearth went on without interruption: "Mew--mew--mew. Boo--loo--lal-la--mama." The child made efforts to drag himself to his feet by laying hold of the old man's trousers. "Nay, laddie," said the old man, "mind my claes--they'll dirty thy bran-new brat for thee." "Is he growing, father?" said the girl. "Growing?--amain." "And his eyes--are they changing color?--going brown? Children's eyes do, you know." "Maybe--I'll not be for saying nay." "Is he--is he _very_ like me, father?" "Nay--well--nay--I's fancying I see summat of the stranger in the laal chap at whiles." The young mother turned her head aside. * * * * *