Mrs. Alvord looked from one boy to the other, her glance resting at last very kindly on Jimmy.
“But, my dear, you are not buying this candy; it is given you.”
Still Jimmy did not reach forth his hand.
“Ah! you really think you ought not to take it? Then don’t do it by any means. You are a noble, manly, little boy, James Dunlee.”
Jimmy blushed for pleasure, but could not raise his eyes. Oh, wasn’t it grand to be called a manly boy!
“You may have been naughty once, but you are good now, and I shall tell your mamma so. I’m going to your house to dinner.”
Jimmy’s little face was radiant. Mamma would know he was manly after all!
“And now shall I give the rest of the peppermints to Gilbert?” asked Mrs. Alvord.
Gilbert took them eagerly, wondering why Jimmy had refused them, and suspecting that Jimmy did not care much for peppermints.
“That’s the ‘Jimmy-boy’ the blind Mrs. Pope talks so much about. He is a boy to be proud of,” said Mrs. Alvord, as she finished tying her bonnet-strings before the glass in her sister’s room.