"Ronald! Ronald! our van has come! John saw it go past the gate whilst we were in school."

"Has it!" exclaimed Fred Norton, no less excited at the news than his brother; "then let's go down at once and have a look at it."

Off ran the two little fellows, and were soon in the village; and there, sure enough, drawn up in a side street, was the van of a travelling tinker. The old horse had been taken out of the shafts and was standing patiently on one side, while the tinker's wife, with her baby in her arms, walked slowly up and down, casting from time to time an anxious look up the street.

Her sunburnt face beamed with a hearty smile as the two boys rushed up to her.

"Here you are, young gentlemen!" she said, with evident delight; "I was looking out for you. I thought you'd see us go by; but my old man, he says, 'Susan, what are you thinking of? Those young gentlemen have forgotten you by this time, for it's six months more or less since we last passed by here.'"

"We haven't forgotten you," said little Ronald indignantly. "How could I forget when you were so kind to me? I could not have got home that day I sprained my foot, and then your van came up, and you jumped out and carried me in, and bathed my foot, and brought me home. Why—why—" stammered the little fellow in his eagerness, "I should be a pig if I forgot you."

"Step inside, sirs," said the woman, quite confused by Ronald's gratitude; "I want you to see how beautiful the clock looks that your mamma gave me. It goes just splendid; my old man is proud of it; it never loses a minute, and yet it gets many a jolt."

The children needed no second invitation. The van was a paradise to them, and they ran up the steps and looked at everything, and everything seemed charming. They longed to possess such a treasure, and thought the tinker and his wife must be the happiest of mortals.

"I should like to live here always," said Fred, as he and Ronald stood at the door of the van and looked out at the scene around them. "It's so jolly free," continued the boy, "so far better than always being in one house; and the cat there, and the cocks and hens, and old Dobbin—I'd much rather look at things like that than at the maps and pictures on our schoolroom walls."

"Ah! but you don't know all, sir," said the woman, shaking her head. "I was born in a van, and have always lived in one, but I don't want my little laddie here to lead the life," and she danced the crowing baby in her arms as she spoke. "I hope, by and by, we shall have a little cottage of our own and settle down, and my boy can go to school and learn to read his Bible, which is more than his mother can do, for I never had a day's schooling in my life."

"Can't you read?" said little Ronald in astonishment. "I'll come every day that you stay here and teach you. I'll begin to-night!" and before another word could be said he had darted out of the van and was up the street and out of sight, returning in a very few minutes with a large picture-book, out of which he himself had learned to read.

Ronald was a wise little fellow to have brought a picture-book; for such a work of art had never been seen by the woman before, and if reading was only looking at pictures like that she felt she might manage it after all.

She was by no means a stupid scholar, and Ronald was so earnest a little teacher that the progress made was really astonishing. The tinker found a good many jobs in the village, and stayed nearly a fortnight, and by that time Susan could spell little words very nicely, and no longer read a-s-s, donkey, as, misled by the picture, she had done at the beginning of the lessons.

Ronald's mother gave the woman a large print Bible with a great many pictures in it; and when next year the tinker's van again visited the village, Susan was delighted to be able to exhibit her progress, and slowly and reverently she read the parable of the Lost Sheep.

"I read that to my old man most nights," she said; "his father was a shepherd, and he knows all about sheep. Oh, Master Ronald!" said the woman, suddenly changing her tone, "I do bless you for putting it into my head to learn to read."

Certainly Ronald was a happy boy that day.