"I don't mind that," she answered, "come early in the morning and we'll stay all day."
That afternoon he went to the village store to buy his week's provisions. Half-a-dozen men who were loafing in front of it asked no better sport than to get him into a corner, so that he could not escape, and fling at him taunts and jeers about his crooked body. It was fun to see the sensitive face flush with anger, or quiver with pain, and it was not until his self-control was entirely gone and he sank in a sobbing heap on the floor, that they let him go.
The night was one of torture to him. It was not the mother he had never seen who could comfort him now, but Miss Atherton. His idea of heaven was a place where he might always be within the sound of her voice, within reach of her hand, and where she would look kindly upon him.
He was thankful that the way to her house lay beyond the village and not through it. He would never dare to show himself there on his wheel. And the road to the lilies ran through the woods; none would see to-morrow when he went there with her.
She was already on the veranda in her bicycle suit when he rode up the next morning. She tied a basket of lunch to his wheel and a book to her own.
"You see we are going to stay all day," she said, "and I couldn't think of starting without refreshment for body and mind. My brother has an armful of new books which came from the city yesterday, and he didn't even hear me when I said good-bye."
They started, Miss Atherton chatting busily and Tony too happy to speak except in monosyllables. A turn in the road brought them to a branch of the river, white with lilies in full bloom. She dismounted with a little cry of delight. "Oh, how white and sweet they are!"
Tony found a boat moored by the side of the stream and they soon had gathered a great sheaf of the golden-hearted censers, rich with fragrance, which they covered with cool ferns in the shade of the trees until they should be ready to take them home. Being collected early in the day they were fresher and sweeter than if they had been allowed to feel the heat of the later morning sun.
The lilies well cared for, they sat down under a tree and she read to him the story of Launcelot. His brave deeds and manly service, his love for Guenevere, and the spirit of romance and knightly courage which seemed to fairly breathe from the pages, held Tony spellbound.
"Miss Atherton," he said wistfully, as she finished, "I'd like to be one of those fellows."