Page:Saxe Holm's Stories, Series Two.djvu/204

194 ; still she could not hold it for many minutes.

"What does make it pinch so?" she said. "Poor little Stonie, is that all the way it can speak? Mother said the wasp pricked me to say 'Let me alone;' but this does not hurt. I like it."

Mrs. Allen looked uneasy. "Does thee think, Doctor, it can harm the child?"

"No," replied the Doctor, in a perplexed tone. "No, I think not. If it is, as it seems to me, simply a natural electricity, it may do good; but it is a strange thing. I 'd give a good deal to know what it is."

Broad sunbeams were resting on Ally's bed; the coverlet was soon warm to the touch. Ally laid the crystal carefully on one of the white spaces, "Stonie does not look pretty on the red color," she said. One of the abutilon blossoms had fallen, and she was slowly tearing the bright striped bell into strips and arranging them in fantastic patterns on her breast; the feathery stamens also lay scattered about like a shower of golden threads. Suddenly Ally cried out:—

"Oh, see! The flowers like Stonie; they follow him." We all ran to her bed, and stood transfixed with astonishment at the sight. Yes, the flowers did follow the stone! As Ally drew it slowly along, the tiny shreds of the abutilon petals and the slender filaments of the stamens followed it. On touching