When she went forward, little darling blue-clad figure, there was a murmur of admiration; and when she made mistakes straight through the poem, saying,
There was a little flower that fell
On my aunt Martha's floor,
for beginning, there was a roar of tender laughter and a clapping of tender, maternal hands, and everybody wanted to catch hold of little Lucy and kiss her. It was one of the irresistible charms of this child that people loved her the more for her mistakes, and she made many, although she tried so very hard to avoid them. Little Lucy was not in the least brilliant, but she held love like a precious vase, and it gave out perfume better than mere knowledge.
Jim Patterson was so deeply in love with her when he went home that night that he confessed to his mother. Mrs. Patterson had led up to the subject by alluding to little Lucy while at the dinner-table.
“Edward,” she said to her husband—both she and the rector had been present at Madame's school entertainment and the tea-drinking afterward—“did you ever see in all your life such a darling little girl as the new cashier's daughter? She quite makes up for Miss Martha, who sat here one solid hour, holding her card-case, waiting for me to talk to her. That child is simply delicious, and I was so glad she made mistakes.”
“Yes, she is a charming child,” assented the rector, “despite the fact that she is not a beauty, hardly even pretty.”
“I know it,” said Mrs. Patterson, “but she has the worth of beauty.”
Jim was quite pale while his father and mother were talking. He swallowed the hot soup so fast that it burnt his tongue. Then he turned very red, but nobody noticed him. When his mother came up-stairs to kiss him good night he told her.
“Mother,” said he, “I have something to tell you.”
“All right, Jim,” replied Sally Patterson, with her boyish air.