Mr. Ludolph looked him over as he and his daughter passed out on their return to breakfast, and said, "He will answer if he is strong enough."
He saw nothing in that child's face to fear.
Dennis assured him with a significant glance, which Mr. Ludolph understood as referring to better fare, that "he would grow strong fast now."
Miss Ludolph was at once interested in the boy's pale face and large, spiritual eyes; and she resolved to sketch them before good living had destroyed the artistic effect.
Under kindly instruction, the boy took readily to his duties, and promised soon to become very helpful. At noon Dennis took him out to lunch, and the poor, half-starved lad feasted as he had not for many a long day.
The afternoon mail brought Dennis his mother's letter, and he wondered that her prediction should be fulfilled even before it reached him, and thus again his faith was strengthened. He smiled and said to himself, "Mother lives so near the heavenly land that she seems to get the news thence before any one else."
During the day a lady who was talking to Mr. Ludolph turned and said to Dennis: "How prettily you have arranged this table! Let me see; I think I will take that little group of bronzes. They make a very nice effect together."
Dennis, with his heart swelling that he had arrived at the dignity of salesman, with much politeness, which evidently pleased the lady, assured her that they would be sent promptly to her address.
Mr. Ludolph looked on as if all was a matter of course while she was present, but afterward said: "You are on the right track, Fleet. You now see the practical result of a little thought and grace in arrangement. In matters of art, people will pay almost as much for these as for the things themselves. The lady would not have bought those bronzes under Berder's system. When things are grouped rightly, people see just what they want, and buy the effect as well as the articles;" and with this judicious praise Mr. Ludolph passed on, better pleased with himself even than with Dennis.
But, as old Bill Cronk had intimated, such a peck of oats was almost too much for Dennis, and he felt that he was in danger of becoming too highly elated.