"Would you really, Leslie?" asked Douglas.
"But why not?" cried she. "That's one of the things worth while in the world."
"I'd love to go halvers with you," proposed Douglas. "Let's do it! When will you go to see her?"
"In a few days," said Leslie. "The last one was, 'Could you get any idea of what is the trouble?'"
"Very little," said Douglas. "She can sit up and move her hands. He is teaching her to read and write. She had her lesson very creditably copied out on her slate. She practises in his absence on poems Mickey makes."
"Poems?"
"Doggerel," explained Douglas. "Four lines at a time. Some of it is pathetic, some of it is witty, some of it presages possibilities. He may make a poet. She requires a verse each evening, so he recites it, then writes it out, and she uses it for copy the next day. The finished product is to have a sky-blue cover and be decorated either with an English sparrow, the only bird she has seen, or a cow. She likes milk, and the pictures of cows give her an idea that she can handle them like her doll——"
"Oh Douglas!" protested Leslie.
"I believe she thinks a whole herd of cows could be kept on her bed, while she finds them quite suitable to decorate Mickey's volume," said Douglas.
"Why, hasn't she seen anything at all?"