“And where is he now?”
“I don’t know. I’m to go to school,” he said, acquiring confidence the more he looked in that sweet face. “My friends will send me, in three years, Granny says.”
“You are a very nice little boy, and I’m sure a good little fellow. We’ll have tea in a few minutes—you must stay and drink tea with us.”
The little fellow held his straw hat in his hand, and was looking up in the face of the lady, whose slender fingers were laid almost caressingly on his rich brown hair as she looked down smiling, with eyes in which “the water stood.” Perhaps these forlorn childhoods had a peculiar interest for her.
“And it is very polite of you taking off your hat to a lady, but put it on again, for I’m not a bit better than you; and I’ll go and tell them to get tea now. Dulcibella,” she called. “Dulcibella, this little friend is coming to drink tea with us, and Amy and he will play here till it comes, and don’t mind getting up, sit quiet and rest yourself.”
And she signed with her hand, smiling, to repress her attempt to rise.
“Well, darling, play in sight o’ me, till your mamma comes back,” said the rheumatic old woman, addressing the little girl; “and ye mustn’t be pulling at that great rolling-stone; ye can’t move it, and ye may break your pretty back trying.”
With these and similar injunctions the children were abandoned to their play.
He found this pretty young lady imperious, but it was pleasant to be so commanded, and the little boy climbed trees to gather her favourite apples, and climbed the garden wall to pluck a bit of wallflower, and at last she said—
“Now, we’ll play ninepins. There’s the box, set them up on the walk. Yes, that’s right; you have played; who taught you?”