Little Katy laughed outright, as the idea of this Lilliputian combatant presented itself. Ruth looked serious. "That is not right, Nettie,"

said she; "your grandmother is an unhappy, miserable old woman. She has punished herself worse than anybody else could punish her. She is more miserable than ever now, because I have earned money to support you and Katy. She _might_ have made us all love her, and help to make her old age cheerful; but now, unless she repents, she will live miserably, and die forsaken, for n.o.body can love her with such a temper. This is a dreadful old age, Nettie!"

"I _think_ I'll forgive her," said Nettie, jumping into her mother's lap; "but I hope I shan't ever hear her say anything against you, mother. I'm glad I wasn't Katy. Didn't you ever wish, Katy, that she might fall down stairs and break her neck, or catch a fever, or something?"

"Oh, mother, what a funny girl Nettie is!" said Katy, laughing till the tears came; "I had almost forgotten her queer ways! Oh, how grandmother _would_ have boxed your ears, Nettie!"

The incorrigible Nettie cut one of her pirouettes across the room, and snapped her fingers by way of answer to this a.s.sertion.

While Ruth and her children were conversing, the two gentlemen were quite as absorbed in another corner of the apartment.

"It astonishes me," said Mr. Grey to Mr. Walter, "that 'Floy' should be so little elated by her wonderful success."

"It will cease to do so when you know her better," said Mr. Walter; "the map of life has been spread out before her; she has stood singing on its breezy heights--she has lain weeping in its gloomy valleys. Flowers have strewn her pathway--and thorns have pierced her tender feet. The cl.u.s.ters of the promised land have moistened her laughing lip--the Dead Sea apple has mocked her wasted fingers. Rainbows have spanned her sky like a glory, and storms have beat pitilessly on her defenceless head.

Eyes have beamed upon her smiling welcome. When wounded and smitten, she fainted by the way, the priest and the Levite have pa.s.sed by on the other side. 'Floy' knows every phase of the human heart; she knows that she was none the less worthy because poor and unrecognized; she knows how much of the homage now paid her is due to the _showy setting_ of the gem; therefore, she takes all these things at their true valuation.

Then, my friend," and Mr. Walter's voice became tremulous, "amid all these 'well done' plaudits, _the loved voice is silent_. The laurel crown indeed is won, but the feet at which she fain would cast it have finished their toilsome earth-march."

"It is time we gentlemen were going; let us talk business now," said Mr.

Walter, as Ruth returned from her conversation with the children. "How long did you propose remaining here, Ruth?"

"For a month or so," she replied. "I have several matters I wish to arrange before bidding adieu to this part of the country, I shall try to get through as soon as possible, for I long to be settled in a permanent and comfortable home."

"I shall return this way in a month or six weeks," said Mr. Walter, "and if you are ready at that time, I shall be most happy to escort you and your children to your new residence."

"Thank you," said Ruth. "Good-bye, good-bye," shouted both the children, as the two gentlemen left the room.

CHAPTER Lx.x.xIII.

"I don't know about holding you _both_ in my lap at once," said Ruth smiling, as Nettie climbed up after Katy.

"Do, please," said Nettie, "and now let us have a nice talk; tell us where we are going to live, mamma, and if we can have a kitty or a rabbit, or some live thing to play with, and if we are going to school, and if you are going to leave off writing now, and play with Katy and me, and go to walk with us, and ride with us. Shan't we have some rides?

What is the matter, mamma?" said the little chatterbox, noticing a tear in her mother's eye.

"I was thinking, dear, how happy we are."

"Isn't that funny?" said Nettie to Katy, "that mamma should cry when she is happy? I never heard of such a thing. _I_ don't cry when I'm happy.

Didn't we have a good dinner, Katy? Oh, I like this house. It was such an old dark room we used to live in, and there was nothing pretty to look at, and mamma kept on writing, and I had nothing to play with, except a little mouse, who used to peep out of his hole, when it came dark, for some supper. I liked him, he was so cunning, but I couldn't give him any supper, because--" here the little chatterbox glanced at her mother, and then placing her mouth to Katy's ear, whispered, with a look the gravity of which was irresistible, "because mamma couldn't support a mouse."

Ruth laughed heartily as she overheard the remark, and Nettie thought her mother more of a puzzle than ever that she should keep laughing and crying so in the wrong place.

"What have you there, Nettie?" asked Katy.

"Something," said Nettie, looking very wise, as she hid her chubby hands under her pinafore. "It is a secret. Mamma and I know," said she with a very important air, "don't we, mamma? Would you tell Katy, mother, if you were me?"

"Certainly," said Ruth; "you know it would not be pleasant to keep such a great secret from Katy."

Nettie looked very searchingly into her mother's eyes, but she saw nothing there but sincerity.

"Won't you _ever_ tell, Katy ever? it is a terrible secret."

"No," replied Katy, laughing.

"Not even to Mr. Walter?" asked Nettie, who had learned to consider Mr.

Walter as their best friend, and the impersonation of all that was manly and chivalrous.

Katy shook her head negatively.

"Well, then," said Nettie, hanging her head with a pretty shame, "_I'm in love!_"

Katy burst into an uncontrollable fit of laughter, rocking herself to and fro, and ejaculating, "Oh! mamma! oh! did you ever? Oh, how funny!"

"Funny?" said Nettie, with the greatest naivete, "it wasn't funny at all; it was very nice. I'll tell you all how it happened, Katy. You see I used to get so tired when you were away, when I had n.o.body to play with, and mamma kept up such a thinking. So mamma said I might go to a little free school opposite, half-a-day, when I felt like it, and perhaps that would amuse me. Mamma told the teacher not to trouble herself about teaching me much. Well, I sat on a little low bench, and right opposite me, across the room, was such a _pretty_ little boy! his name was Neddy. He had on a blue jacket, with twelve bright b.u.t.tons on it; I counted them; and little plaid pants and drab gaiters; and his cheeks were so rosy, and his hair so curly, and his eyes so bright, oh, Katy!" and Nettie clasped her little hands together in a paroxysm of admiration. "Well, Katy, he kept smiling at me, and in recess he used to give me half his apple, and once, when n.o.body was looking,--_would_ you tell her mamma?" said Nettie, doubtfully, as she ran up to her mother.

"Won't you tell, now, Katy, certainly?" again asked Nettie.

"No," promised Katy.

"Not even to Mr. Walter?"

"No."

"Well, once, when the teacher wasn't looking, Katy, he took a piece of chalk and wrote 'Nettie' on the palm of his hand, and held it up to me and then kissed it;" and Nettie hid her glowing face on Katy's neck, whispering, "wasn't it beautiful, Katy?"

"Yes," replied Katy, trying to keep from laughing.

"Well," said Nettie, "I felt most ashamed to tell mamma, I don't know why, though. I believe I was afraid that she would call it 'silly,' or something; and I felt just as if I should cry if she did. But, Katy, she did not think it silly a bit. She said it was beautiful to be loved, and that it made everything on earth look brighter; and that she was glad little Neddy loved me, and that I might love him just as much as ever I liked--just the same as if he were a little girl. Wasn't _that_ nice?"

asked Nettie. "I always mean to tell mamma everything; don't you, Katy?"

"But you have not told Katy, yet, what you have hidden under your ap.r.o.n, there," said Ruth.

"Sure enough," said Nettie, producing a little picture. "Well, Neddy whispered to me one day in recess, that he had drawn a pretty picture on purpose for me, and that he was going to have a lottery; I don't know what a lottery is; but he cut a great many slips of paper, some long and some short, and the one who got the longest was to have the picture.

Then he put a little tiny mark on the end of the longest, so that I should know it; and then I got the picture, you know."

"Why did he take all that trouble?" asked the practical Katy. "Why didn't he give it to you right out, if he wanted to?"

"Because--because," said Nettie, twirling her thumbs, and blushing with a little feminine shame at her boy-lover's want of independence, "he said--he--was--afraid--the--boys--would--laugh at him if they found it out."

"Well, then, I wouldn't have taken it, if I had been you," said the phlegmatic Katy.

"But, you know, I _loved_ him so," said Nettie naively.