By much explaining, however, granny enabled him to comprehend in some vague way how the mystery was accomplished; and then arose within the heart of the child an unutterable longing to understand this mysterious art fully, and be able to read for himself—a longing that grew in intensity as evening after evening he tried, by granny's help, to master the alphabet. In fact, it became a passion with the lad, and many an hour in the weeks and months that followed he spent gazing at the placards on the walls, and in trying to explain to the other Arabs that gathered around him the meaning of the mysterious characters.

Benny was naturally a sharp lad, and hence, though his opportunities were few, his progress was by no means slow. Sometimes he startled Joe Wrag by spelling out a long word that he had carried in his head the whole of the day, and asking its meaning. Long words had an especial fascination for him, and the way he brought them out in all sorts of connections was truly amusing.

Nelly manifested no desire to learn to read. If ever she thought about it, it was only to regard it as something infinitely beyond her capabilities; and she seemed content to remain as she was. But if she could get granny to read to her a chapter out of St. John's Gospel, she seemed to desire no higher pleasure. She would sit with a dreamy far-away look in her half-closed eyes, and the smiles that old Joe Wrag loved to see would come and go upon her face like patches of spring sunshine chasing each other across a plain. She never said very much, but perhaps she thought all the more. To honest Joe Wrag she seemed as if ripening for a fairer country, and for a purer and nobler life. Not that she ailed anything. True, she had a little hacking cough now and then, and when she lay asleep a pink spot would glow on either cheek; but nothing more than that.

"Speretual things," mused Joe Wrag one night, as he sat in the door of his hut looking into the fire, "are speretually discerned, an' I b'lieve that child 'as rale speretual discernment: she looks a mighty sight deeper than we thinks she do, that's my opinion. I should like to get howld o' all that passes through her purty little noddle, the little hangel—bless her! As for the boy, 'e's a little hanimal. I reckon the passons would call him a materialist. I don't b'lieve 'e b'lieves nothing but what 'e sees. No speretual insight in 'im—not a bit. P'raps he's like me, don't belong to the elect. Ah, me! I wonder what the likes o' us was born for?"