In the midst of her bowing and singing the Judge came into the room. Sukey was standing with one claw uplifted, a pair of attentive eyes fixed on Bethany, and an expression that seemed to say, “Very pretty, indeed; please sing some more.”
“Where did you learn that, little girl?” inquired the Judge.
“I just changed it, Daddy Grandpa,” said Bethany, wheeling round. “It is really and truly a dolly song, but I put in ‘birdie.’”
The Judge was looking intently at her. Was she not going to inquire about the English boy? She had known that he was ill when she went to school.
“Don’t you want to know how Dallas is?” he said, suggestively.
“O, yes, poor Dallas. Is he a sick boy yet?”
“No, he is better. He is going to stay here, Bethany.”
She looked up quickly. “To be your other boy—the boy you were looking for when you found me?”
“Yes—exactly so.”
She made no reply, but, sitting down in the little rocking-chair that the Judge kept in his study for her, she thoughtfully took Sukey on her lap and began to stroke her pretty hood.