Toward morning, when he painfully dragged himself to the desk, his face did not light up. He was giving up hope. However, it did light up, and with an unearthly radiance too, when the answer this time came to him: “Boy better—has regained consciousness, and is asking for you. Come at once.”
The Judge sprang up like a boy. He raised his two hands to heaven, “God be praised—if the boy lives, a double contribution to the poor—another boy to share his life—an end to my selfishness—if he lives—if he lives,” and burying his face in his hands the dear old Judge sobbed like a baby.
CHAPTER III
Happy Times
Ah! that was the beginning of happy times for the princess.
“Grandfather!” said Titus, weakly, “I have been acting a lie, but don’t punish the bird.” That was one of the first sentences he uttered.
“Hush, hush!” said the Judge, soothingly. “Hush, my boy, your pigeon is in my study. Go to sleep—there is nothing to worry about.”
Then he sat and looked blissfully and curiously at the tired, closed eyes. What fancy was this, or, to go deeper, what sympathy, what affinity was it that drew the first thought of an almost mortally wounded boy to a member of the bird world? That pigeon was more to him than anything else, apparently.
“Doctor,” he said in a low voice, getting up and going over to the white-haired superintendent of the hospital who happened to be at the other end of the room, “are all lads fond of animals?”
“Almost all healthy, normal ones are, according to my observation,” replied the doctor.
“What is the philosophy of it?”