A SUMMER'S EVE. 51 



short of hands, promised him work for at least several ensuing 

 weeks ; and, after staying for a few hours to produce a satisfac- 

 tory specimen of his handiwork, poor Tim, towards evening, 

 wended his way homewards, with a lighter heart than had once 

 been his since his last old friend had been taken from him. 



The balmy air, the evening calm, the hay-fields through 

 which he passed, and where Ins rest upon the hay-cocks seemed 

 a sweet elysimn, all these common enjoyments, which yet to 

 him were rare, had a healing effect upon his wounded spirit 

 now, too, under the reaction of recovery from sickness ; and, 

 without pointing to a single defined object, hope seemed, for 

 once, to have taken him by the hand. 



When he reached home he found his landlady at her supper, 

 of which she more graciously than usual invited him to 

 partake ; and when Tim showed her his bundle of work, and 

 told her his success, there was an appearance of satisfaction in 

 the old woman's wrinkled forbidding face, which looked so 

 much like interest and sympathy, that it went direct to the 

 heart of the poor friendless lad. At that moment of unwonted 

 hopefulness he could less than ever suspect aught of ill, and, 

 crabbed and hard and grasping as he had ever found her, he 

 tried to think that, after her own peculiar fashion, she was, 

 after all, a friend to him. Wishing her a kind good-night, he 

 soon went up to his garret, meaning to go to bed early, and 

 yet earlier to begin the work he had brought home. But 

 before going to rest he had a little business with the Tomkins 



