“Yes, at least I found this and she told me where to bring it.” He held out the ring, coming a step nearer.
“Oh!” The color flew up into the girl’s face. “Oh, how glad I am. You don’t know how glad I am. Tell me all about it.”
Benny told her where he had found it, under a certain rosebush, and how the big nettle had grown up there, and that he had seen this shining thing at its roots. The girl listened with her eyes on the ring.
“You were a dear child to bring it right away,” she said, when he had finished.
“Mrs. Bentley told me to. I work there, you know.”
Beulah questioned him, and he told her how and why he had come. Her eyes looked at him wistfully when he had finished. “I wish I had something to give you for finding this.”
Benny put his hands behind him. “Oh, but I wouldn’t take it. I didn’t work for it. I just happened to find it, and I am as glad as can be that I did.”
“I value it very much. I don’t think I own anything that I value so much, and I do want to give you something, but I can’t, I’m afraid, for we’re not very rich, and I hardly ever have any money to spend. I want you to have a piece of cake, though. I made it myself this morning.”
Benny felt that he need not refuse a piece of cake, and he sat down on the step while she went to get it. She came back with what Benny thought was the most delicious slice of cake he had ever tasted. As he sat there eating it, Beulah said: “Let’s pretend I am a fairy who could grant you your wish, something just for your own self and nobody else; what would you like? So long as I can’t give it to you, it won’t do any harm, and we can make out that I am going to give you something more than my thanks.”
Benny was nothing loth to play “make pretend”; he and Kitty had played it too often for it to be an unfamiliar game. So he sat soberly thinking and munching his cake. There was one thing he wanted very, very much; so much that he scarcely liked to utter the wish, for it was so near his heart. He had dreamed of it, longed for it, but it was something so unattainable that he could never dare to hope for it. But after a little while he said, shyly and hesitatingly: “I want a bicycle, awfully.”