"No, I won't come. I believe my boots are too thin," said I; and for the
equivocation there was in my reply I am sure of being forgiven. You both
turned back twice to look at the child, and kissed your hands to her; and
I wondered if you did not see in her face, what I did, real grief and
patient endurance. Even "The King of the Golden River" did not rouse her:
she did not want a story; she did not want me; she did not want a red
balloon at night; she wanted to walk between you, to the station, with her
little hands in yours! God grant the day may not come when you will be
heart-broken because you can never lead her any more!

She asked me some questions, while you were gone, which you remember I
repeated to you. She asked me if I did not hate nice new shoes; and why
little girls could not put on the dresses they liked best; and if mamma
did not look beautiful in that pretty white dress; and said that, if she
could only have had her own tea-set, at breakfast, she would have let me
have my coffee in one of her cups. Gradually she grew happier, and began
to tell me about her great wax-doll, which had eyes that could shut; which
was kept in a trunk because she was too little, mamma said, to play very
much with it now; but she guessed mamma would let her have it to-day; did
I not think so? Alas! I did, and I said so; in fact, I felt sure that it
was the very thing you would be certain to do, to sweeten the day, which
had begun so sadly for poor little Blue Eyes.

It seemed very long to her before you came back, and she was on the point
of asking for her dolly as soon as you appeared; but I whispered to her to
wait till you were rested. After a few minutes I took her up to your
room,--that lovely room with the bay window to the east; there you sat, in
your white dress, surrounded with gay worsteds, all looking like a
carnival of humming-birds. "Oh, how beautiful!" I exclaimed, in