Then a yearning look came over the child and he began to cry. Sue thereupon could not refrain from instantly doing likewise, being a harp which the least wind of emotion from another's heart could make to vibrate as readily as a radical stir in her own.

`You may call me Mother, if you wish to, my poor dear!' she said, bending her cheek against his to hide her tears.

`What's this round your neck?' asked Jude with affected calmness.

`The key of my box that's at the station.'

They bustled about and got him some supper, and made him up a temporary bed, where he soon fell asleep. Both went and looked at him as he lay.

`He called you Mother two or three times before he dropped off,' murmured Jude. `Wasn't it odd that he should have wanted to!'

`Well - it was significant,' said Sue. `There's more for us to think about in that one little hungry heart than in all the stars of the sky.... I suppose, dear, we must pluck up courage, and get that ceremony over? It is no use struggling against the current, and I feel myself getting intertwined with my kind. Oh Jude, you'll love me dearly, won't you, afterwards! I do want to be kind to this child, and to be a mother to him; and our adding the legal form to our marriage might make it easier for me.'