"'Cause I spect she isn't my mamma."
"Why, Fly, you haven't started yet!"
"I didn't think 'twas best," responded the child, sulkily, fixing her eyes on the mice, who were dancing whirligigs round the wheel.
"Come here to your best friend, little Topknot," said Horace. "Let's take that cage into the green-house, and ask papa to keep it there, because the mice look like water-lilies on long stems."
Flyaway brightened at once. She knew water-lilies were lovely. Giving Grace a triumphant glance, she danced across the room, and put the cage in Horace's hands, with a smile of trusting love that thrilled his heart.
"Hollis laughs at my mouses, but he don't say, 'Put 'em away,' and, 'Put 'em away;' he says, 'Little gee-urls wants to see things as much as anybody else,'" thought she, gratefully.
"Horace," said Grace, with a curling lip, "that child is growing up just like you—fond of worms, and bugs, and all such disgusting things."
Horace smiled. No matter for the scorn in Grace's tone; it pleased him to be compared in any way with his precious little Flyaway.
"Topknot has a spark of sense," said he, leading her along to the green-house. "I'll bring her up not to scream at a spider."
"Now, young lady," said he, setting the cage on the shelf beside a camellia, and speaking in a low voice, though they were quite alone, "can you keep a secret?"