The boy lifted to mine a pair of deep blue eyes, from which innocence beamed, as he offered me his hand, and said, respectfully—"How do you do, sir?" I could not but remark the girl-like beauty of his face, in which the hardier firmness of the boy's character was already visible.
"What is your name?" I asked.
"Frank, sir."
"Frank is his name," said the landlord—"we called him after his uncle. Frank and Flora—the names sound pleasant to the ears. But you know parents are apt to be a little partial and over fond."
"Better that extreme than its opposite," I remarked.
"Just what I always say. Frank, my son,"—the landlord spoke to the boy—"there's some one in the bar. You can wait on him as well as I can."
The lad glided from the room in ready obedience.
"A handy boy that, sir; a very handy boy. Almost as good, in the bar as a man. He mixes a toddy or a punch just as well as I can."
"But," I suggested, "are you not a little afraid of placing one so young in the way of temptation?"
"Temptation!" The open brows of Simon Slade contracted a little. "No, sir!" he replied, emphatically. "The till is safer under his care than it would be in that of one man in ten. The boy comes, sir, of honest parents. Simon Slade never wronged anybody out of a farthing."