The little infant drank greedily.

He held the phial at the necessary incline, grumbling, “They are all the same, the cowards!  When they have all they want they are silent.”

The child had drunk so ravenously, and had seized so eagerly this breast offered by a cross-grained providence, that she was taken with a fit of coughing.

“You are going to choke!” growled Ursus.  “A fine gobbler this one, too!”

He drew away the sponge which she was sucking, allowed the cough to subside, and then replaced the phial to her lips, saying, “Suck, you little wretch!”

In the meantime the boy had laid down his fork.  Seeing the infant drink had made him forget to eat.  The moment before, while he ate, the expression in his face was satisfaction; now it was gratitude.  He watched the infant’s renewal of life; the completion of the resurrection begun by himself filled his eyes with an ineffable brilliancy.  Ursus went on muttering angry words between his teeth.  The little boy now and then lifted towards Ursus his eyes moist with the unspeakable emotion which the poor little being felt, but was unable to express.  Ursus addressed him furiously.

“Well, will you eat?”

“And you?” said the child, trembling all over, and with tears in his eyes.  “You will have nothing!”

“Will you be kind enough to eat it all up, you cub?  There is not too much for you, since there was not enough for me.”

The child took up his fork, but did not eat.

“Eat,” shouted Ursus.  “What has it got to do with me?  Who speaks of me?  Wretched little barefooted clerk of Penniless Parish, I tell you, eat it all up!  You are here to eat, drink, and sleep—­eat, or I will kick you out, both of you.”

The boy, under this menace, began to eat again.  He had not much trouble in finishing what was left in the porringer.  Ursus muttered, “This building is badly joined.  The cold comes in by the window pane.”  A pane had indeed been broken in front, either by a jolt of the caravan or by a stone thrown by some mischievous boy.  Ursus had placed a star of paper over the fracture, which had become unpasted.  The blast entered there.

He was half seated on the chest.  The infant in his arms, and at the same time on his lap, was sucking rapturously at the bottle, in the happy somnolency of cherubim before their Creator, and infants at their mothers’ breast.

“She is drunk,” said Ursus; and he continued, “After this, preach sermons on temperance!”

The wind tore from the pane the plaster of paper, which flew across the hut; but this was nothing to the children, who were entering life anew.  Whilst the little girl drank, and the little boy ate, Ursus grumbled,—­