Page:Mrs. Spring Fragrance - Far - 1912.djvu/121

 past kindnesses, and expressed their confidence in her.

"McLeod, Jean," declared an old man, '*you are a hundred women good."

Which was the highest compliment that Jean McLeod had ever received.

"You are wrong, mother!" said she, turning with a beaming face to old Sien Tau. "This is the happiest day I have known."

Explained the father of the babe: "The gods, seeing my unworthiness, took from me to give to you."

And Little Me, straggling to the teacher's side, piped in the language she herself had taught him:

"I have one brother. I love him all over. You say baby boy best gift, so I give him to you when my father and mother not see. Little Me give better than Lee Chu and Hom Hing.

It was some time before the tumult occasioned by Little Me's boastful but sweet confession subsided. It had been heard by all, but was understood wholly by none save the teacher.

That when no watchful eye was there to see, the baby had been carried in Little Me's sturdy arms from under the home roof to the