J. COLE. 3

his little limbs were evidently meant for some-
body almost double his size, but they were
clean and tidy. |

In one hand he held a bundle, tied in a red
handkerchief, and in the other a bunch of
wildflowers that bore signs of having tray-
elled far in the heat of the sun, their blossoms
hanging down, dusty and fading, and their
petals dropping one by one on the ground.

“Who are you, my child?” I said, “and
what do you want?”

At my question the boy placed his flowers
on my table, and, pulling off his cap, made a
queer movement with his feet, as though he
were trying to step backwards with both at
once, and said, in a voice so deep that it quite
startled me, so strangely did it seem to be-
long to the size of the clothes, and not the
wearer, —

“Please ’m, it’s J. Cole; and I’ve come to
live with yer. Dve brought all my clothes,
and everythink.”

For the moment I felt a little bewildered,
so impossible did it seem that the small spe-
cimen of humanity before me was actually