Kindly, and gently, but as of one
For whom ’tis well to be fled and gone;
As of a bird from a chain unbound,
As of a wanderer whose home is found;
So let it be!
And what had Grace to give to Hugh? What had she among her few treasured possessions a boy would care for? The dolls maimed for life—the broken china—the picture-books—the bits of lace and ribbons, what were they to him? Grace never realized her poverty before that day—and then the very thought was humiliating. If she could only buy a knife, or a pocket-book, or a pencil-case; but the child had no purse, and, unfortunately, no money either, so that thought was speedily abandoned. It grew quite dark while she stood in her little room, still before the opened drawer which held all her keepsakes and treasures, but no good fairy was nigh at hand to lay before her the thing she wished, and at last, quite in despair, she went and stood by the parlor window, and lo, there was Hugh already passing by, whistling, and looking for all the world as though the inmates of that particular house were nothing in the least to him.
In a few moments, side by side, the boy and girl were walking in the garden.
“I have read your note, Hugh,” said Grace, for the “shades of evening” creeping over them, gave her a wonderful and unnatural boldness to speak, “but what shall I give you for a keepsake? I haven’t a book in the world you would give a fig for.”
“Don’t talk about books,” replied he, hastily, “there is something that wouldn’t cost you much, I’d give more for than for all the books in Christendom!”
“What is it, Hugh, tell me quick?”