As the door closed behind the bishop, he exclaimed,
"Call Mrs. Martin, Brown, and then send for the doctor. This boy was hurt at our very door."
Brown promptly obeyed both orders, and Mrs. Martin, the housekeeper, hastily prepared a room for the unexpected guest. The doctor soon responded to the summons, but all his efforts failed to restore the boy to consciousness that day. The bishop watched the child as anxiously as if it had been one of his own flesh and blood. He had neither wife nor child, but perhaps all the more for that, his great heart held love enough and to spare for every child that came in his way.
It was near the close of the following day when Tode's eyes slowly opened and he came back to consciousness, but his eyes wandered about the strange room and he still lay silent and motionless. The doctor and the bishop were both beside him at the moment and he glanced from one face to the other in a vague, doubtful fashion. He asked no question, however, and soon his eyes again closed wearily, but this time in sleep, healthful and refreshing, instead of the stupor that had preceded it, and the doctor turned away with an expression of satisfaction.
"He'll pull through now," he said in a low tone. "He's young and full of vitality--he'll soon be all right."
The bishop rubbed his hands with satisfaction. "That's well! That's well!" he exclaimed, heartily.
The doctor looked at him curiously. "Did you ever see the lad before you picked him up yesterday?" he asked.
"No, never," answered the bishop, who naturally had not recognised in Tode the boy whom he had taken into church that Sunday, weeks before.
The doctor shook his head as he drove off and muttered to himself,
"Whoever saw such a man! Who but our bishop would ever think of taking a little street urchin like that right into his home and treating him as if he were his own flesh and blood! Well, well, he himself gets taken in often no doubt in another fashion, but all the same the world would be the better if there were more like him!"