At first little progress seemed made. At table the two hardly looked at each other, and Jim never spoke unless actually obliged; but now and again she would see them sitting together in the boat, which had always been Jim's summer sitting-room, and gradually it seemed as though there was more talk between them. She could see that Pat began to chatter away freely enough, and sometimes she fancied that Jim took a share in the conversation. His pipe would go out, and be laid aside. He would lean towards the child, and seem to be listening with some intentness. Eileen was not a little curious to know what all this talk was about, but Pat was singularly reticent, and seldom spoke of Jim, though he would chatter to his mother about anything and everything else. Once she did venture to ask what they had been talking about, and got an answer that surprised her not a little.
"We talk about a lot of things; Jim knows such a lot when you once get him to talk," said Pat, with a certain quiet reserve of manner. "But I think he likes it best when we talk about God. You see he'd almost forgotten about Him. He's remembering now, and it's very interesting. We've begun at the beginning of the Bible, and we skip a good deal, so we shall soon get to the part about Jesus, and I think that'll be the most interesting of all!"
[CHAPTER III]
AN ODD PAIR
"It be queer to see them together. They be as thick as thieves," said Nat to his wife with a broad smile, as he sat down to table for the dish of tea he always looked for before he went up to see that all was in order with the lamp before the dusk fell. "As for me, I can't get a word out of him no how; but the little chap, he makes him talk as I never knew he could. I can't hear what they say. Bless you! if I so much as look that way, Jim shuts up his mouth like as if no power on earth would open it, and Pat he goes as red as a rose, as if he was half ashamed to be caught chattering; but so soon as my back's turned they're at it again. And glad I be that the poor chap has found somebody to love and to care for him; for he's had a hard life of it, if all we hear of him be true."