To my astonishment, I did not feel myself blush, or tremble as usual; and when he said, “Susan, can you answer this question?” I stood erect, and was about to begin, when the big girl who came with me, thinking I was about to make a fool of myself, and disgrace her, jumped up too, and said, “I am sure she can’t say that long one, sir.” Not deigning to notice the interruption, and fixing my eye on a peg in the wall, I went straight through the long answer like a well-trained locomotive, never stopping to take breath till I had jerked out the last syllable.
Did I ever blush after that? Not I. Did I hold up my head while there? To be sure I did, but when I sat down, Clara jerked my sleeve, and said, pouting, “You are the oddest, most provoking little thing I ever saw, and nobody ever knows what you are going to do next. I never felt so silly in all my life; it is the last time I will come to catechize with you.” But one thing is very certain, those parrot-girls never called me stupid afterward, and what was worth a mine of gold to me, when I went out of the vestry, the minister laid his hand of blessing on my head, and, gave me a smile, I am sure, as radiant as the one he now wears in heaven.
A LUCKY IRISH BOY.
“Halloo there! little fellow, what are you doing here, on my door-step? why don’t you run home to your dinner?”
“I was waiting for you to come home, thinking you’d give me some,” said the boy.
The gentleman smiled, and looked in Johnny’s face; there was nothing vicious in it; it was a bright, honest little face, lit up by a pair of round blue eyes, and shaded by locks of tangled brown hair; there was nothing impertinent in his answer to Mr. Bond, had you heard the tone in which he made it.
“Where do you live?” asked the gentleman.
“I don’t live, I stay round.”
“Who takes care of you?”