“I shall be discreet, never fear—­” and his grasp relaxed.  I sped me back to the coil of rope on which I had left my young companion, intending to partake with her there my biscuit and orange, so needed now for strength.

I found in her stead (for she had departed in the interval) a delicate-looking young woman, plain and poor, a widow evidently from the style of her shabby mourning and sad expression of face, bearing in her arms a weird and sickly-looking child, evidently a sufferer from spinal disease—­an infant as to size, but preternaturally old in countenance.

The steady gaze of its large and serious eyes affected me magnetically—­eyes that seemed ever seeking something that still eluded them, and which now appeared to inquire into my very soul.

“Is your little boy ill, madam?” I asked at last; and at the sound of my voice a smile broke over his small, sallow features, lending them strange beauty, but dying away instantly again into an expression of startled suspicion.

“Yes, very ill,” she answered, clasping him tenderly as he clung to her suddenly.  “He has some settled trouble that no medicine reaches, and you see how small and light he is.  Many a twelve months’ babe is heavier than he, yet he is three years old come March next, and he is ’cute beyond his years, it seems to me.”

“You seem very weak and weary,” I rejoined.  “I noticed you yesterday with interest, sitting all the time with your boy on your knee.  You must need exercise and rest.  Go and walk now a little, while you can;” and I stretched my arms for her baby.

To her surprise, evidently, he came to me willingly—­attracted, no doubt, by the gleam of the watch-chain about my neck, and still further propitiated by a portion of my orange, which he greedily devoured.

In the mean time the poor, pale mother took a few turns on the quarter-deck, and, disappearing therefrom a moment, returned with a small supply of cakes and biscuits which she had sought in the steward’s room.

An inspiration of Providence, no doubt, she thought this proceeding later, which at the moment was only intended to anticipate the delay attendant on all second-class meals.

These cakes, with a pains-taking diligence, if not forethought—­peculiar to all feeble animals, squirrels, sick children, and the like—­did he one by one cram and compel into my pocket, unconscious as I was at the moment of his miser-like proceeding (instinctive, probably), which later I detected, to his infinite rejoicing.  In company with my slender purse, and bunch of useless keys, a pencil, and a small memorandum-book, they remained perdu until that moment of accidental discovery arrived which was to test their value and place it “far above that of rubies.”

Light as a pithless nut seemed this little creature in my strong, energetic arms, and yet his mother staggered beneath his weight.

She insisted, however, after a time, on resuming her charge of him, as it was proper she should do, and then sat beside me, delivering herself of a long string of complaints and grievances, after the fashion of all second-rate, solitary people when secure of sympathy.