will, I trust, be tomorrow."

"Say nought about it," Geoffrey answered; "Madge and I are right glad to
have been of service to you. It would be a poor world indeed if one could
not give a corner of one's fireside to a fellow-creature on such a night as
this, especially when that fellow creature is a woman with a child. Poor
little chap! He looks right well and sturdy, and seems to have taken no
ill from his journey."

"Truly, he is well and sturdy," the mother said, looking at him proudly;
"indeed I have been almost wishing today that he were lighter by a few
pounds, for in truth I am not used to carry him far, and his weight has
sorely tried me. His name is Walter, and I trust," she added, looking at
the powerful figure of her host, "that he will grow up as straight and as
stalwart as yourself." The child, who was about three years old, was indeed
an exceedingly fine little fellow, as he sat, in one scanty garment, in his
mother's lap, gazing with round eyes at the blazing fire; and the smith
thought how pretty a picture the child and mother made. She was a fair,
gentle-looking girl some two-and-twenty years old, and it was easy enough
to see now from her delicate features and soft shapely hands that she had
never been accustomed to toil.

"And now," the smith said, "I will e'en say good night. The hour is late,
and I shall be having the watch coming along to know why I keep a fire so
long after the curfew. Should you be a stranger in the city, I will gladly
act as your guide in the morning to the friends whom you seek, that is,
should they be known to me; but if not, we shall doubtless find them
without difficulty."

So saying, the smith retired to his bed of rushes in the smithy, and soon