intercourse with so genteel a baby, and after it was all over she
amused herself with making him repeat the baby's very genteel (and
as she justly said "uncommon") name.

When Abel came back from school, he resumed his charge, and Mrs.
Lake went about other work. She was busy, and the nurse-boy put Jan
to bed himself. The sandy kitten waited till Jan was fairly
established, so as to receive her comfortably, and then she dropped
from the roof of the press-bed, and he cuddled her into his arms,
where she purred like a kettle just beginning to sing.

Outside, the wind was rising, and, passing more or less through the
outer door, it roared in the round-house; but they were well
sheltered in the dwelling-room, and could listen complacently to the
gusts that whirled the sails, and made the heavy stones fly round
till they shook the roof. Just above the press-bed a candle was
stuck in the wall, and the dim light falling through the gloom upon
the children made a scene worthy of the pencil of Rembrandt, that
great son of a windmiller.

When Mrs. Lake found time to come to the corner where the old press-
bed stood, the kitten was asleep, and Jan very nearly so; and by
them sat Abel, watching every breath that his foster-brother drew.
And, as he watched, his trustworthy eyes and most sweet smile
lighting up a face to which his forefathers had bequeathed little
beauty or intellect, he might have been the guardian angel of the
nameless Jan, scarcely veiled under the likeness of a child.

His mother smiled tenderly back upon him. He was very dear to her,
and not the less so for his tenderness to Jan.