The summer had done much for Timmy. The pain in his hip was disappearing, and by the end of August there were pink baby curves where the skin had been white and drawn over his little bones. There were times, when he was cuddling against Eleanor or tumbling about in the sun, that he was almost pretty. He was glad enough of ministrations from Rosamund or Mother Cary, but Eleanor was the bright lady of his adoration.
"My White Lady," he called her, taking great pains always to pronounce every consonant of the beloved name, though he usually discarded most of them as not at all necessary to intelligent conversation. With the inquisitiveness of childhood, he soon discovered that she had once had a little boy of her own.
"Where is your little boy?" he asked one day with infantile directness.
"He is gone away," she told him.
But that was not enough. "Did somebody 'dopt your little boy?" he persisted.
Eleanor looked at Rosamund; the same thought was in the minds of both. How many times had little Tim been offered for inspection to would-be adopters, and refused? How much of it had he understood? What had it all meant, to his poor little lonely heart? Eleanor drew him more closely to her.
"W'y don't you tell Timmy? Did somebody 'dopt your little boy?"
She gave him the simplest answer. "Yes, dear," she said.
Timmy was thoughtful for a moment. Then he said, "I guess he must have been a pretty little boy!"
Neither Eleanor nor Rosamund could speak, but Tim was oblivious of their emotion. A new idea, an entrancing one, had presented itself. He climbed upon Eleanor's lap, took her face between his palms, and said, smiling divinely,