Page:Stories by Foreign Authors (Spanish).djvu/182

178 "Will you give me some beans?" begged the strange child.

"Yes, here are some. Are you very, very fond of roasted beans?"

"Yes, very; but I asked you for them because I am very hungry."

"Why, have you had no dinner?"

"No."

"Nor any breakfast, either?"

"No."

"Mother, mother," cried both the children together, running to their mother; "this poor little boy has n't had any dinner or any breakfast, and he is very hungry; give us some bread for him."

"He has had no dinner, you say?" said the good woman, giving the child a piece of bread with that compassionate tenderness which seems innate in women toward children; "have you no parents, then, my child?"

"Yes, but they have no bread to give me."

"Poor little boy! And where are your parents?"

"Over there," answered the boy, pointing in the direction of a lane that ran between garden walls, at right angles with the street.

The good woman, followed by the children, went to the lane.

On the dry grass, with his face turned to the wall, lay a man, miserably clad and apparently