That pet name brought forth a passionate outburst of tears. Her voice choked, and choked again, as she sobbed out,—
"Nobody has ever called me Loo Loo since my father died."
He soothed her with gentle words, and she, looking up earnestly, as if stirred by a sudden thought, exclaimed,—
"How did you know my father called me Loo Loo?"
He smiled as he answered, "Then you don't remember a young man who ran after you one day, when you were playing with a little white dog at Pine Grove? and how your father called to you, 'Come here, Loo Loo, and see the gentleman'?"
"I don't remember it," she replied; "but I remember how my father used to laugh at me about it, long afterward. He said I was very young to have gentlemen running after me."
"I am that gentleman," he said. "When I first looked at you, I thought I had seen you before; and now I see plainly that you are Loo Loo."
That name was associated with so many tender memories, that she seemed to hear her father's voice once more. She nestled close to her new friend, and repeated, in most persuasive tones, "You will buy me? Won't you?"
"And your mother? What has become of her?" he asked.
"She died of yellow fever, two days before my father. I am all alone.
Nobody cares for me. You will buy me,—won't you?"