fellow-traveller might have treated me thus, I felt a thrill of
gratitude towards him, and then I wondered how he had prospered in his
search for work. As for me, it was pretty clear that if I hoped to work
my way in this wicked world, I must suspect a scoundrel in every man I
met, and forestall mischief by suspicion. As I sat and thought, I sifted
the beans through my fingers, and saw that there were lots of strange
seeds mixed with them, some of very fantastic shapes; and I wondered
what countries they came from, and with what shape and scent and colour
the plants blossomed, and thought how Charlie would like some of them to
sow in pots and watch. As I drove my hands deeper into the heap, I felt
that it was quite warm inside, and then I put my head down to smell if
there was any fragrance in the seeds, and I did not lift it up again,
for I fell fast asleep.

I was awakened by a touch on my head, and a voice just above me, saying:
"He's alive anyhow, thank GOD!" and sitting up among the beans I found
that it was dark and foggy, but a lamp at some distance gave me a pretty
good view of an old woman who was bending over me.

She was dressed, apparently, in several skirts of unequal lengths, each
one dingier and more useless-looking than the one beneath it. She had a
man's coat, with a short pipe in the breast-pocket; and what her bonnet
was like one could not tell, for it was comfortably tied down by a
crimson handkerchief with big white spots, which covered it completely.
Her face was as crumpled and as dirty as her clothes, but she had as
fine eyes and as kind eyes as mine had ever met. And every idea of
needful wariness and of the wickedness of the world went quite naturally
out of my head, and I said, "Did you think I was dead, Mother?"

"I did not; though how would I know what would be the matter wid ye,