“Oh, isn’t that delicious music?” cried Lulu, as the bird paused for a moment. “Max, you couldn’t do that, could you?”
“No, indeed,” laughed Max. “I’d give a great deal if I could. But hark, he’s beginning again.”
“It sounds as if he’s praising God,” Lulu remarked, at the next pause; “he sings as if his little heart is so full of joy and thankfulness that he doesn’t know how to express it.”
“Yes,” said Gracie’s voice, close at her side. “I think he’s rejoicing in the beautiful moonlight, Lu; and isn’t it lovely? It makes a rainbow in the spray of the fountain, and I can see the dewdrops glitter in the grass. And look at the fireflies dancing in and out among the trees and bushes.”
“Some of them soaring away above the tree-tops,” put in Max.
“And maybe birdie is rejoicing in the sweet scent of the roses and honeysuckle, the mignonette, the moon-flowers, and others too numerous to mention,” said Lulu. “But where have you been all this time, Gracie?”
“With Elsie and baby Ned. Mamma put them to bed as usual before she and papa went, but she couldn’t stay till Elsie went to sleep, and I offered to stay beside Elsie and sing to her and tell her stories, and mamma said I might, and she would be very much obliged to me for it.”
“That was good in you, Gracie,” Lulu said, pulling Grace down into her lap, and putting her arm round her; “I suppose it was my place to do it, really, as I’m the oldest, but I never thought of it. But you are always such a dear, kind, unselfish girl.”
“And so you are,” said Max and Grace, speaking together, Max adding, “Who was it was so brave the night the burglars got into the strong room, and so unselfish as to prefer to risk her own life, locking them in there, rather than have papa risk his?”
“Lulu, of course,” said a voice that sounded like Evelyn Leland’s, speaking near at hand, on the other side of the little girls, “for who else would have done it?”