"Mother said you wouldn't, when I
told her, but I said you would. She wouldn't leave the door unlocked,
cos she didn't know nothing about you; but she said, if you came to-day,
you could come back to-night when she was home, and come in."

"Oh, may I?" said Dick, rather gruffly; for he hardly liked the idea of
meeting strangers.

"Yes," went on Gerty; "I'll sing lots, if you want; and mother'll be
glad to see you, too."

"All right; mebbe I'll come. And say, here's suthin for ye," and the
orange shot through the window.

"Oh, my!" she gasped, "how nice! Is it really for me?" And Dick
answered, "Yes, eat it now."

Half his pleasure was in watching her eager relish of the fruit; and as
Gerty needed no second bidding, the orange rapidly disappeared, she
pausing now and again to look across gratefully at Dick and utter
indistinct expressions of delight.

"Now shall I sing?" she asked, when the last delicious mouthful was
fairly swallowed; for she was anxious to make some return for the
pleasure he had given her.

"All right," responded Dick, "I'm ready."

So the thin little voice began again the old refrain; Gerty singing with
honest fervor, Dick listening in rapt attention. Following "Happy Land"
came "I want to be an angel," "Little drops of water," etc.; and when
full justice had been done to these well-worn tunes, Dick suggested a
change.

"Don't you sing 'Mulligan Guards'?" he questioned, at the close of one
of the hymns.

"No," said Gerty, perplexed. "They didn't sing that up to the
horspital."

"Oh, mebbe they don't sing it to the horspital; but I've heard 'em sing
it bully to the circus. I say," he went on suddenly, "was you ever
there--to the circus, I mean?"

"No," said Gerty, eagerly. "What do they do?"

"Oh, it's beautiful!" was Dick's answer. "All bright, you know, and
warm, and the wimmin is dressed awful fine, and the men, too; and the
horses prance around; and they have music and tumbling, and--oh, lots of
things!"

"My! and you've been there?"

"Oh yes, I've been!" Then, as he watched her sparkling eyes, "Look here,
I'll take you. I could carry you, you know, and we'd go early, and I'd
put you up against a post, and----Don't you want to go?"

"Want to go?" she repeated with rapture. "Oh, it's too good to be true!
I was scared just a-thinkin' of it. Oh, if mother'd let me an' I could!
Wouldn't I be too heavy? Mother says I'm light as a feather,--and I
wouldn't weigh more'n I could help