Dawn put his saucer of jam down and flung himself upon his father with tearful eyes.
"I've told you thousands of times how sorry I was. I did mean to help you, dad; you know I did! I begged you to give me a thrashing; but I've helped you with some of your pictures, haven't I? Oh, I wish you wouldn't make me keep remembering that varnish! I wish you had had a girl like Tina instead of a boy like me!"
His father put his brush in his mouth, and for a minute rested his hand on the curly head that was burrowing itself into his coat pocket.
"You're my plague and joy, sonny, and as necessary to me as my paint is! Now be off with you. I hear Miss Bertha calling."
"I hope my father will speak to me like that," said Christina, as they left the room.
"Dad and I are very old friends," Dawn responded quaintly. "We've learnt to understand each other."
All the way home Christina turned over these words in her mind.
"If my father isn't old friends with me, we can be new ones perhaps. I hope, oh, I do hope he will like me!"
When Miss Bertha left her at the door of her home, she said to her softly:
"I am going to give you a nice little verse, Childie, to think of when you get frightened of people and of things. It is this: