It has never gone out.' 'You are fond of it ?' said the child.
'Of course I am.

He died before it.

I saw him fall down--just there, where those ashes are burning now--and wondered, I remember, why it didn't help him.' 'Have you been here ever since ?' asked the child.
'Ever since I came to watch it; but there was a while between, and a very cold dreary while it was.

It burned all the time though, and roared and leaped when I came back, as it used to do in our play days.
You may guess, from looking at me, what kind of child I was, but for all the difference between us I was a child, and when I saw you in the street to-night, you put me in mind of myself, as I was after he died, and made me wish to bring you to the fire.

I thought of those old times again, when I saw you sleeping by it.