“For me,” she ejaculated, her now pink face growing red, “for Bethany?”
“Y-y-yes, for Bethany,” said the boy, good-humoredly.
“O, charm of novelty,” reflected the Judge, and he looked round the room. He had as good a set of servants as there was in the city. They were as grateful as they could be to him for his kindly remembrance of them, but it was the gratitude of custom, of anticipation. They knew he would give them handsome presents; any other well-to-do and well disposed employer would have done the same, but this child—he looked at her again.
She was in a quiet rapture. “O, the cunning candies,” she murmured, “each one in a little dress; O, the pretty pink flounces.”
“Why don’t you eat some?” inquired the Judge.
She touched them daintily with the tips of her fingers. “O, sir, I could not eat them. I shall keep them forever and ever and ever.”
“But they will spoil; they were made to eat.”
“Would you like one, sir?” she asked, anxiously.
“No, thank you.”
She gazed seriously into the box and began to count one, two, three, four, and so on. “Sir,” she said at last, “there are just enough to go twice round for Mrs. Tingsby’s children and the boarders.”