"I lay in a barn till I got well—I'm quite well now; you need not be afraid."
"No, indeed; I had never thought of that."
We soon became quite sociable together. He guided me carefully out of the town into the Abbey walk, flecked with sunshine through overhanging trees. Once he stopped to pick up for me the large brown fan of a horse-chestnut leaf.
"It's pretty, isn't it?—only it shows that autumn is come."
"And how shall you live in the winter, when there is no out-of-door work to be had?"
"I don't know."
The lad's countenance fell, and that hungry, weary look, which had vanished while we talked, returned more painfully than ever. I reproached myself for having, under the influence of his merry talk, temporarily forgotten it.
"Ah!" I cried eagerly, when we left the shade of the Abbey trees, and crossed the street; "here we are, at home!"
"Are you?" The homeless lad just glanced at it—the flight of spotless stone-steps, guarded by ponderous railings, which led to my father's respectable and handsome door. "Good day, then—which means good-bye."
I started. The word pained me. On my sad, lonely life—brief indeed, though ill health seemed to have doubled and trebled my sixteen years into a mournful maturity—this lad's face had come like a flash of sunshine; a reflection of the merry boyhood, the youth and strength that never were, never could be, mine. To let it go from me was like going back into the dark.