The secret of his joy through sun and shower.
He looked at me with open eyes, and said:
“I know the sun is somewhere shining clear,
And when I cannot see him overhead,
I try to be a little sun, right here!”
When the applause had ceased, and the talk had drifted in other directions, Mr. Percival looked around the circle and with a twinkle in his eye proposed that after breakfast the young people should make him a visit in his den.
“And we’ll have a rag fire,” he added soberly.
“A rag fire?”
“Yes. In the summer time I rarely burn anything but rags in the den.”
Now this “Den” was a most mysterious locality, which they had often heard alluded to, but where little company was admitted. Mr. Percival, I should add, was, as you may have guessed from aunt Puss’ remarks about the “kittlin’,” a most earnest reader and lover of George MacDonald’s books, which perhaps accounts for the curious arrangement I am about to describe.