His eyes were brighter as he walked home beside the Squire, and he looked about him with more of natural, childish interest than he had ever evinced before.
When they stood together in the hall, the child looked up in the Squire’s face with the first smile that had been seen as yet in those wistful dark eyes.
“May I have my dinner down-stairs to-day with you?” he asked. “Because it’s Sunday, you know.”
The Squire looked meditatively into the child’s face, and asked in his turn,—
“Why should I be more troubled with you on a Sunday than on any other day?”
Bertie smiled once more quite fearlessly. It had been observed from the very first that the child had never appeared in the least afraid of the Squire, whose rather rough manner and sharp way of speaking often made him appear a formidable being to those who did not understand his truer nature.
“I won’t be any trouble,” answered Bertie, in his frank and serious way, “but I should like to come. Please will you let me?”
“Very well, I will allow it to-day, since your heart seems set upon it; but you must not take it as a precedent.”
“Oh no, of course not,” answered Bertie; “it’s only on Sundays that I want to stay with you for dinner.”
And then he mounted the stairs, to tell Mrs. Pritchard of the arrangement he had just made.