"Will you, though?" replied the child, looking keenly at Blanche's earnest, guileless face. "Don't want no teachin' much—dreadful bad for the dress and boots, though;" and then she added, with a softer expression on her face than Blanche observed before, "You're a nice, pretty little thing. I likes you." Then after a pause she continued, in a reckless tone, "Don't b'lieve you'll come again, nor send Him neither, though. Nobody never keeps no promises. Tim hasn't; he's never looked near."
"Well, fairy, I know one Person who does keep promises, at any rate," said Blanche, smiling.
"I don't," nodded the child, decisively. "P'rhaps you keeps your promises. You do look a nice little thing," she added, putting out her thin fingers, and taking hold of Blanche's dress in a caressing way.
"No, fairy; I'm sure I don't always keep my promises. It's the Lord Jesus Christ I mean. I've just been trying to remember one of His promises to tell you, and I've found one—it's this, 'I will give you a new heart.' Will you try to remember to ask Him for that?—do, dear fairy."
"A new 'art. Well, did I ever—as if I wasn't needin' a new dress a great sight more;" and the child threw herself back among the straw, and laughed shrilly.
Grant had gone to the door to try and open it in the absence of a handle, which had been wrenched off, and Blanche took the opportunity to whisper, "I know you need a new dress very much, poor fairy; and perhaps He'll give you that, too. But will you ask Him—quite low, if you like—just when you are lying here all by yourself—to give you a new heart? That means to make you good and happy always, you know. He does really hear, though you cannot see Him. Will you not try, fairy?"
"Don't mind though I do. Nothink else to do lyin' here. I'm to ask a new 'art, you say,—just as if I was a-beggin' from a gintle-man on the street, I s'pose? I know," said the child, with a nod. "Look, she's waitin' for you—got the door open. Now, see you ax Him for the dress and boots."
[XV.]
A RIDE IN THE PARK.