rapidly disappearing, pleased to see him eat so eagerly, yet abashed at having nothing else to offer.
"I'm sorry we can give you only such as this. We don't live like you do in the no'th. Have a little more of the honey."
"Ah, but this is fine. Good, hey, little chap? You are doing a very beneficent thing, do you know, saving a man's life?" He glanced up at her flushed face, and she smiled deprecatingly. He fancied her smiles were rare.
"But it is quite true. Where would I be now but for you and Hoyle here?
Lying under the lee side of the station coughing my life away,--and all my own fault, too. I should have accepted the bishop's invitation."
"You helped me when the colt was bad." Her soft voice, low and monotonous, fell musically on his ear when she spoke.
"Naturally--but how about that, anyway? It's a wonder you weren't killed. How came a youngster like you there alone with those beasts?"
Thryng had an abrupt manner of springing a question which startled the child, and he edged away, furtively watching his sister.
"Did you hitch that kicking brute alone and drive all that distance?"
"Aunt Sally, she he'ped me to tie up; she give him co'n whilst I th'owed on the strops, an' when he's oncet tied up, he goes all right." The atom grinned. "Hit's his way. He's mean, but he nevah works both ends to oncet."
"Good thing to know; but you're a hero, do you understand that?" The child continued to edge away, and David reached out and drew him to his side. Holding him by his two sharp little