'James! James!'
I got my arms right round her, and I held her tight; you bet I did. I didn't say much, but I supplied the deficiency in another way. Presently I did make a remark.
'Why, my girl, you look--well, I really think you're getting pretty.'
'James!'
She turned the colour of a strawberry that's just getting ripe--the cream showing through the red. Every time I pay her a compliment she seems to tingle right to the roots of her hair. It's an old joke, my pretending to discover that she's getting pretty--as though she hadn't always been that vision of all that's fair in woman, of which, until I met her, I had only dreamed!--but every time I make it she looks that sweet she reminds me of a meadow on the slope of a hill, in which the spring flowers are tipped with dew.
I gave the youngsters a turn.
'Hollo! I do believe you're that little boy of mine whose name was Jimmy.'
'Dad! dad! I knew you'd come home soon, 'cause I did ask God so hard last night to sent you.'
'And--isn't that girl named Pollie?'
'Tourse it is! tourse it is! Ooo know it is.'