The Love of God. 139

“ Are you ill?” was his firft queftion.

“ T don’t know,” was the anfwer.

«¢ Are you hungry?”

“ Very!”

Here Theodore got up and went to the next
room, where preparations were being made for
dinner, and fetched bread and gave it to the boy,
who ate it greedily, without once lifting up his
eyes. ‘ Poor child,” thought Theodore, “life
has no mental troubles for him!”

“ Are you forry your mother is fo ill?” was
his next inquiry. |

“ She’s not my mother,” muttered the boy.

Theodore ftarted—¢ What do you mean? Are
you not that woman’s child?”

“ No! the told me I wafn’t.”

«¢ Who are you, then ?”’

“I don’t know. She told me fhe had ftolen
me to beg for her.”

“© And do you remember nothing about it?”

“< No, its too long ago.”

Theodore now fetched him more bread, but
whilft he was eating it he no longer fat by him,
but walked up and down the room. Every now
and then as he ftopped and looked at the thin,
fickly looking obje& he had brought into the houfe,
he was overtaken by a ftrong feeling of pity for
his miferable condition.

This child was as defolate as himfelf, only in
another way. Stolen from his parents to beg for
the ftrange woman, he had lived with her fo long