“Would you like to come down here with me and see?”
“Yes, indeed I would.”
He went a little aside and brought a long ladder up which he climbed, and lifting her over the railing, he carried her down pick-a-back.
“There,” he said, when they had reached the ground, “we’ll take a turn around the garden. Are you wrapped up good and warm?”
“Almost too warm, in this blanket. Do I look like an Indian?”
“You might look like almost anything in this light, but I don’t think your costume will do to walk in.” He took her up in his arms, although she protested that she was too heavy. “If I couldn’t carry a mite like you I’d be a poor stick,” he told her, and he bore her off under the trees, down this path, and up that, between hedge-rows and past flower borders, telling her of the moths, the katydids and of all the night creatures; of flowers that went to sleep and of those that were awake only after the sun went down.
After a while Cassy asked, “What were you thinking of, Uncle John, when you were walking, walking up and down?”
“Of many things; of my boyhood and of——” he paused, “my little baby girl asleep forever out there in Australia.”
“Oh!” Cassy held him closer. “I didn’t know. Oh, Uncle John, I am so sorry and I love you very much.”
He kissed her.