an ailing child and without saying anything to you consoles you
for everything.... I shall never understand it all. I do not know
how it can all be, but my knees bend in spite of me when I speak
of it....

He stopped and looked at her.

"You boy!" said Mary, not very clearly.

"Oh yes," he returned. "But it's true--especially my knees!"

"You boy!" she murmured again, blushing charmingly. "You might read
another line over. The first time I ever saw you, Bibbs, you were
looking into a mirror. Do it again. But you needn't read it--I can
give it to you: 'A little Greek slave that came from the heart of
Arcady!'"

"I! I'm one of the hands at the Pump Works--and going to stay one,
unless I have to decide to study plumbing."

"No." She shook her head. "You love and want what's beautiful and
delicate and serene; it's really art that you want in your life,
and have always wanted. You seemed to me, from the first, the most
wistful person I had ever known, and that's what you were wistful
for."

Bibbs looked doubtful and more wistful than ever; but after a moment
or two the matter seemed to clarify itself to him. "Why, no," he
said; "I wanted something else more than that. I wanted you."