eyes fixed on the boy. Then, with an effort, she got to her feet.

"Come, you must go to bed," she stammered. "I'm sure bed is--is
the best place you. I think I can find what--what you need," she
finished feebly.

In a snug little room over the kitchen some minutes later, David
found himself at last alone. The room, though it had once
belonged to a boy of his own age, looked very strange to David.
On the floor was a rag-carpet rug, the first he had ever seen. On
the walls were a fishing-rod, a toy shotgun, and a case full of
bugs and moths, each little body impaled on a pin, to David's
shuddering horror. The bed had four tall posts at the corners,
and a very puffy top that filled David with wonder as to how he
was to reach it, or stay there if he did gain it. Across a chair
lay a boy's long yellow-white nightshirt that the kind lady had
left, after hurriedly wiping her eyes with the edge of its hem.
In all the circle of the candlelight there was just one familiar
object to David's homesick eyes--the long black violin case which
he had brought in himself, and which held his beloved violin.

With his back carefully turned toward the impaled bugs and moths
on the wall, David undressed himself and slipped into the
yellow-white nightshirt, which he sniffed at gratefully, so like
pine woods was the perfume that hung about its folds. Then he
blew out the candle and groped his way to the one window the
little room contained.

The moon still shone, but little could be seen through the thick
green branches of the tree outside. From the yard below came the