moment, without any previous warnings as to its intention. The
toadstools looked like the ghosts of little past-and-gone fairy
umbrellas in the darkness, and not a single fairy couple came to
waltz under their snowy canopies, or exchange a furtive kiss beneath
their friendly shadows.

Dicky thought the situation exceedingly gloomy, and, without knowing
it, followed the example of many older people, who, on being deserted
by man, experienced their first desire to find favour with God. He
was not in the least degree a saintly child, but he felt
instinctively that this was the proper time for prayer; and not
knowing anything appropriate to the occasion, he repeated over and
over again the time-worn plaint of childhood:-


'Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take. Amen.'


Like older mortals of feeble faith, he looked for an immediate and
practical answer, in the shape, perhaps, of his mother, with his
little night-gown and bowl of bread and milk.

'My sakes alive!' he grumbled between his sobs, 'they're the meanest
fings I ever saw. How long do they s'pose I'm goin' to wait for 'em
in this dark? When the bears have et me up in teenty snips, then
they'll be saterfied, I guess, and wisht they'd tookened gooder care
of me--a little speck of a boy, lefted out in this dark, bear-y