"I have a pair of red shoes with white buttons," she said. David,
unable to think of any possession of his own to cap either bite
or boots, was smitten into gloomy silence.

In spite of the landlord's disapproval of his tenant's rings, the
acquaintance of the two families grew. Mr. Ferguson had to see
Mrs. Richie again about those "sashes," or what not. His calls
were always on business--but though he talked of greenhouses, and
she talked of knocking out an extra window in the nursery so that
her little boy could have more sunshine, they slipped after a
while into personalities: Mrs. Richie had no immediate family;
her--her husband had died nearly three years before. Since then
she had been living in St. Louis. She had come now to Mercer
because she wanted to be nearer to a friend, an old clergyman,
who lived in a place called Old Chester.

"I think it's about twenty miles up the river," she said. "That's
where I found David. I--I had lost a little boy, and David had
lost his mother, so we belonged together. It doesn't make any
difference to us, that he isn't my own, does it, David?"

"Yes'm," said David,

"David! Why won't you _ever_ say what is expected of you? We
don't know anybody in Mercer," she went on, with a shy,
melancholy smile, "except Elizabeth." And at her kind look the
little girl, who had tagged along behind her uncle, snuggled up
to the maternal presence, and rubbed her cheek against the white
hand which had the pretty rings on it. "I am so glad to have