Then there was a faint stirring in the bed where the children slept, and a little boy’s form began to crawl from amongst the rough bedclothes, his eyes gazing in amazement at the bowed figure of his mother.  She was crying, he concluded, for her shoulders were heaving and it must be something very bad that made his beautiful mother cry like this.  He crept across the bare wooden floor, his bare sturdy legs showing beneath the short and meager shirt, and was soon at her side.

“What’s wrang wi’ you, mother?” he asked, as he put his soft little hand upon her head.  “What’s wrang wi’ you?  Will I kiss you held and make it better?” But his mother did not look up—­only the big sobs continued to shake her, and the boy becoming alarmed at this, also began to cry, as he placed his little head against hers.  “Oh, mother, dinna greet,” he sobbed, “and I’ll kiss your heid till it’s better.”

At last she lifted her head, and seeing the naked boy, she caught him in her arms and crushed him to her breast, as if she would smother him.  This was strange conduct for his usually undemonstrative mother; but it was nice to be hugged like that, even though she did cry.

“What made you greet, mother?” he queried, for he had never before, in all his four years, seen his mother cry.  For answer she merely caught him closer to her breast, her hair falling soft and warm all over him as she did so.

“Was you hungry, mither?” he tried again.

“No’ very,” she answered, choking back her sobs.

“Are you often hungry, too, mither?” he persisted, feeling encouraged at getting an answer at last.

“Sometimes,” she replied.  “But dinna bother me, Rob,” she continued.  “Gang away to your bed like a man.”

He was silent for a time at this repulse, and lay upon her knee puzzling over the matter.

“Do you greet when you are hungry?” he enquired, with:  wide-eyed earnestness and surprise.

“There noo,” she answered, “don’t ask so many questions, Daddy’ll not be long till he is better again, and when he is at work there’ll be plenty of pieces to keep us all from being hungry.”

“And will there be jeely for the pieces?” pursued the boy, for it seemed to him that there had never been a time when there was plenty to eat.

“Yes, we’ll get plenty o’ jeely too,” she replied, drying the remaining tears from her eyes, and hugging him again to her breast.

“Oh, my,” he said, with a deep sigh.  “I wish my father was better!” and the little lips were moistened by his tongue, as if in anticipation of the coming feast.

Another silence; and then came the query—­“What way do we not get plenty o’ pieces when my daddy’s no’ working?  Does folk no’ get them then?”

“No, Robin,” she answered, “but dinna fash your wee noddle with that.  You’ll find out all about it when you get big.  Shut your eyes and mother’ll sing, an’ you’ll go to sleep.”  And he snuggled in and shut his eyes, while Mrs. Sinclair gathered him softly to her breast and began to croon an old ballad.