be of softened
flame, raying out lance-like shapes of greater distinctness and then
melting away to assume some new form or color.

Doris glanced up at Uncle Winthrop. It was as if she felt it all too
deeply for any words. He liked the silence and the wordless enjoyment in
her face.

"We won't go home just yet," he said. They were crossing Cold Lane and
could have gone down Sudbury Street. "It is early and we will go along
Green Lane and then down to Cambridge Street. You are not tired?"

"Oh, no. I think I never should be tired with you, Uncle Winthrop," she
returned with grave sweetness, quite unconscious of the delicate
compliment implied.

What was there about this little girl that went so to his heart?

"Uncle Winthrop," she began presently, while a soft pink flush crept up
to the edge of her hair, "I heard you and Uncle Leverett talking about
some money the first night you were over--wasn't it _my_ money?"

"Yes, I think so," with a little dryness in his tone. What made her
think about money just now, and with that almost ethereal face!

"Is it any that I could have--just a little of it?" hesitatingly.

"Why? Haven't you all the things you want?"

"I? Oh, yes. I shouldn't know what to wish for unless it was someone to
talk French with," and there was a sweet sort of wistfulness in her
tone.

"I think I can supply that want. Why we might have been talking French
half the afternoon. Do you want some French books? Is that it?"

"No, sir." There was a lingering inflection in her tone that missed
satisfaction.

"Are you not happy at Cousin Leverett's?"

"Happy? Oh, yes." She glanced up in a little surprise. "But the money
would be to make someone else happy."

"Ah!" He nodded encouragingly.

"Betty is going to a party."

"And she has been teasing her mother for some finery?"

"She hasn't any pretty gown. I thought this all up myself, Uncle Win.
Miss Arabella has such quantities of pretty clothes, and they are being
saved up for me. If she was here I should ask her, but I couldn't get
it, you know, by Thursday."

She gave a soft laugh at the impossibility, as if it was quite
ridiculous.

"And you want it for her?"

"She's so good to me, Uncle Win. For although I know some things quite
well, there are others in which I am very stupid. A little girl in
school said yesterday that I was 'dreadful dumb, dumber than a goose.'
Aunt Elizabeth said a goose was so dumb that if it came in the garden
thro