“I wonder where your Jane can be?”
“Presently; Jane said presently,” answered the child, with quiet composure, and returned to the chessmen.
Miss Harding heard her father drive into the yard, and slipped out to speak to him. She told her story, and the doctor gave a low, soft whistle. It was a way he had when any thing surprised him.
“It looks to me,” said he, “as if Jane, whoever she may be, intended to make us a present of Miss Rosebud. Well, we must make the small person comfortable to-night, and to-morrow we will see what to do with her.”
The small person was easily made comfortable. She ate plenty of bread-and-milk for her supper, and more strawberries; and when it was over, she went round and stood beside the doctor.
“I think you are a dood man,” she said, with the quaint gravity which characterized all her utterances. “I should like to sit with you.”
The doctor lifted her to his knee, and she laid her little golden head against his coat. There was a soft place under that coat, as many a sick and poor person in the town knew very well. I think the little golden head hit the soft place. He stroked the shining curls very tenderly. Then he asked,—
“What makes you think I’m a ‘dood’ man, Pussy-cat?”
“My name is not Pussy-cat,—I am Rosebud,” she replied gravely; “and I think you are dood because you look so, out of your eyes.”
The little morsel spoke most of her words with singular clearness and propriety. It was only when a “g” came in that she substituted a “d” for it, and went on her way rejoicing.