"Who—who has charge of him now?" Lucy blushed at her subterfuge.
"Mr. Bob," said Mrs. Wiggs; "he's the gentleman that took us to supper. He's got money. Asia said he give the nigger waiter a quarter. Billy is jes' crazy 'bout Mr. Bob; says he's goin' to be jes' like him when he grows up. He will, too, if he sets his head to it! Only he never kin have them big brown eyes an' white teeth Mr. Bob's got. Why, when Mr. Bob smiles it jes' sort of breaks up his whole face."
Lucy's eyes were fixed on the mammoth butterfly upon whose iridescent wings Asia was putting the finishing touches, but her thoughts were far away.
"I jes' wish you could see him!" went on Mrs. Wiggs, enthusiastically.
"I wish I could!" said Lucy, with such fervor that Mrs. Wiggs paused on her way to answer a knock at the outside door.
There was a scraping of feet in the passage.
"I have been driving all over the country looking for you," said a man's voice. "I have some Christmas traps for the kids."
Lucy rose hastily, and turned just as Redding entered.
"Mr. Bob, this is Miss Lucy," announced Mrs. Wiggs, triumphantly; "she was jes' 'lowin' she'd like to see you."
If a blue-eyed angel straight from the peaks of paradise had been presented to him, Redding could not have been more astounded nor more enraptured.