Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/188

178 they are. And if you watch, you 'll see that he has that flower about him all day somewhere; if it is n't in his fingers, it 's lying on his desk, or in his button-hole. I 've seen him read a whole forenoon with it in his hand. I wonder if anything like it will ever happen to you or me, in this world, Will?"

"May be to you, Jim; not to me. I 'm too prosaic. I should n't understand it. I don't half know what you mean now," replied I. But, in spite of my words, I did know dimly, and wondered, as Jim had wondered, if it were ever to be mine.

"I don't know, old fellow," said Jim. "I 've a notion that the Dominie was something such a fellow as you are; he isn't a bit like her, anyhow. That 's the reason he worships her so. Now, I am like her. I know just how she feels about fifty things a day, when you are only listening to what she says, and trying to make it out that way, just as you do with me, you dear, old, honest, sturdy, strong, slow fellow, worth a thousand of me, any day. But if I were a woman, and you loved me, you 'd understand me just as the Dominie understands mother."

In this warmth of love and care, little Alice bloomed out like the geraniums in the deep window-seats. At the end of two weeks no one would have known the child, except by the hazel-brown eyes. Suffering and feebleness had not disguised or dimmed the beauty of those; neither could joy