Page:Malot - Nobodys Boy, Crewe-Jones, 1916.djvu/218

 went into the room where the family were. I should have to go, but where? While in bed I had not felt very weak, but now I could scarcely stand; I was obliged to hold on to a chair to keep from falling. The odor of the soup was too much for me. I was reminded brutally that I had eaten nothing the night before. I felt faint, and staggering, I dropped into a chair by the fire.

"Don't you feel well, my boy?" asked the gardener.

I told him that I did not feel very well, and I asked him to let me sit by the fire for a little while.

But it was not the heat that I wanted; it was food. I felt weaker as I watched the family take their soup. If I had dared, I would have asked for a bowl, but Vitalis had taught me not to beg. I could not tell them I was hungry. Why? I don't know, quite, unless it was that I could not ask for anything that I was unable to return.

The little girl with the strange look in her eyes, and whose name was Lise, sat opposite to me. Suddenly, she got up from the table and, taking her bowl which was full of soup, she brought it over to me and placed it on my knees. Weakly, for I could no longer speak, I nodded my head to thank her. The father did not give me time to speak even if I had been able.

"Take it, my boy," he said. "What Lise gives is given with a kind heart. There is more if you want more."