“Oh, no! it never tires me to sing,” he smiled.
“Please sing something else, then! I love it!”
So the sweet, magnetic voice rose again,—this time in the haunting little “Nae Room for Twa,” and afterwards Lilith pleaded for “more” and still “more,” until Dorothy interposed out of sheer pity for Doodles.
“What a lovely, lovely boy!” cried Polly, when she had gone downstairs with her friend.
“I think he’s awfully pretty,” Lilith returned.
“Yes, but not only that,—he has such a sweet way. And I never heard such singing! I thought David Collins could sing better than any other boy. But Doodles! Why, when he sat there singing that Christmas carol, all I could think of was an angel!”
“Oh!” exclaimed Lilith rapturously, “with those dear little curls all over his head, and his big brown eyes, wouldn’t he make a beautiful angel for a tableau?”
“He is angel enough without the tableau,” Polly laughed. Then her face saddened. “It is too bad he can’t walk! Hasn’t he ever?”
“Oh, yes! Mrs. Gaylord says he did until he was about four; then he had a terrible fall, and he hasn’t taken a step since.”
“I wonder if father couldn’t cure him,” mused Polly.