"Alone?"
"Oh, no; I have plenty of companions—but never mind that. I will tell it you all another time."
"No; tell it me now; it interests me so much."
"It will make you think me a child still, though we said I was a woman just now. Well, then, first there are the birds,—the black, starved, unhappy-looking London birds; you cannot think how pleased they are with the seed and the crumbs which I take them every morning. I have chosen a particular old thorn-tree for our meeting-place; its leaves are beginning now to peep out, and it will be a great day for the birds and me when its white blossoms appear. As it is, they flock to it quick enough when I come into the square, and seem almost to call to me to make haste."
"You love them, Alice, as you used to love your Passion
Flower?"
"Not exactly; I loved my Passion Flower because it did me good; my birds I love because I do them good. But I have greater friends than these in the square; friends that run to me too when I come in—the darling children."
"How do you love them, Alice?"
"Oh, as God's own chosen ones, whose Angels behold his face in Heaven. They seem so very near Heaven. Will you come some day into the square with me, Miss Middleton?"
"Call me Ellen, and I will go with you wherever you like."
"Well, then, dear Ellen, you must come and see those I love best. There is one so like Johnny!" (her eyes filled with tears as she said this) "only that he looks as if he belonged to some noble race, like those that the verses talk about; and another looks like the picture in my prayer-book of young David going to fight Goliath. I am so happy with them that I sometimes forget myself, and stay longer in the square than I ought."