Page:Burnett - Two Little Pilgrims' Progress A Story of the City Beautiful.djvu/181

Rh stopped, remembering that it was not Robin she was talking to.

"But everybody—what?" said the man.

It was Robin who answered for her this time.

"She said that last night,' he explained, with a half-shy laugh—"that everybody had something they could give to somebody else."

"Oh! well, it isn't always money, of course—or anything big," said Meg hurriedly. "It might be something that is ever so little."

The man laughed, but his eyes seemed to be remembering something as he looked over the lagoon again.

"That's a pretty good thing to think," he said.

"Now"—turning on Meg rather suddenly—"I wonder what you have to give to me."

"I don't know," she answered, perhaps a trifle wistfully. "The thing I give to Rob and Ben is a very little one."

"She makes up things to tell us about the places we can't pay to go into, or don't understand," said Robin. "It's not as little as she thinks it is."

"Well," said the man, "look here! Perhaps that's what you have to give to me. You came to this place alone, and so did I. I believe you're enjoying yourselves more than I am. You're going to take Ben