ple
things, but let me be a child a little longer,--let me play and sing
and keep my spirit blithe among the dandelions and the robins while I
can; for trouble comes soon enough, and all my life will be the richer
and the better for a happy youth."

Mrs. Carroll had nothing at hand to offer in reply to this appeal, and
four ladies dropped their work to stare; but Frank Evan looked in from
the piazza, saying, as he beckoned like a boy,--

"I'll play with you, Miss Dora; come and make sand pies upon the shore.
Please let her, Mrs. Carroll; we'll be very good, and not wet our
pinafores or feet."

Without waiting for permission, Debby poured her treasures into the lap
of a certain lame Freddy, and went away to a kind of play she had never
known before. Quiet as a chidden child, she walked beside her
companion, who looked down at the little figure, longing to take it on
his knee and call the sunshine back again. That he dared not do; but
accident, the lover's friend, performed the work, and did him a good
turn beside. The old Frenchman was slowly approaching, when a
frolicsome wind whisked off his hat and sent it skimming along the
beach. In spite of her late lecture, away went Debby, and caught the
truant chapeau just as a wave was hurrying up to claim it. This
restored her cheerfulness, and when she returned, she was herself again.

"A thousand thanks; but does Mademoiselle remember the forfeit I might
demand to add to the favor she has already done me?" asked the gallant
old gentleman, as Debby took the hat off her own head, and presented it
with a martial salute.

"Ah, I had forgotten that; but you may claim [text missing in original
copy] do something more to give you pleasure;" and Debby looked up into
the withered face which had grown familiar to her, with kind eyes, full
of pity and respect.

Her manner touched the old man very much; he bent his gray head before
her, saying, gratefully,--

"My child, I am not good enough to salute these blooming checks; but I
shall pray the Virgin to reward you for the compassion you bestow on
the poor exile, and I shall keep your memory very green through all my
life."

He kissed her hand, as if it were a queen's, and went on his way,
thinking of the little daughter whose death left him childless in a
foreign land.

Debby softly began to sing, "Oh, come unto the yellow sands!" but
stopped in the middle of a line, to say,--

"Shall I tell you why I did what Aunt Pen