Ever since she had learned to talk she had a quaint little way of singing to herself. All the names that pleased her fancy she strung together in a crooning melody of her own.
There was no special tune. It sounded happy, although nearly always in a minor key.
"Oh, the jonquils an' the lilies!" she sang. "All white an' gold an' yellow. Oh, they're all a-smilin' at me, an' a-sayin' howdy! howdy!"
She was so absorbed in her intense enjoyment that she forgot all about the old Colonel. She was wholly unconscious that he was watching or listening.
"She really does love them," he thought, complacently. "To see her face one would think she had found a fortune."
It was another bond between them.
After awhile he took a small basket from the wall, and began to fill it with his choicest blooms. "You shall have these to take home," he said. "Now come into the house and get your strawberries."
She followed him reluctantly, turning back several times for one more long sniff of the delicious fragrance.
She was not at all like the Colonel's ideal of what a little girl should be, as she sat in one of the high, stiff chairs, enjoying her strawberries. Her dusty little toes wriggled around in the curls on Fritz's back, as she used him for a footstool. Her dress was draggled and dirty, and she kept leaning over to give the dog berries and cream from the spoon she was eating with herself.
He forgot all this, however, when she began to talk to him.