piano, and he managed a feeble but true tune on his violin. It was
all for little Lucy, but little Lucy cared no more for music than his
mother; and while Jim was playing she was rehearsing in the depths
of her mind the little poem which later she was to recite; for this
adorable little Lucy was, as a matter of course, to figure in the
entertainment. It therefore happened that she heard not one note of Jim
Patterson's painfully executed piece, for she was saying to herself in
mental singsong a foolish little poem, beginning:

There was one little flower that bloomed
Beside a cottage door.

When she went forward, little darling blue-clad figure, there was a
murmur of admiration; and when she made mistakes straight through the
poem, saying,

There was a little flower that fell
On my aunt Martha's floor,

for beginning, there was a roar of tender laughter and a clapping of
tender, maternal hands, and everybody wanted to catch hold of little
Lucy and kiss her. It was one of the irresistible charms of this child
that people loved her the more for her mistakes, and she made many,
although she tried so very hard to avoid them. Little Lucy was not in
the least brilliant, but she held love like a precious vase, and it gave
out perfume better than mere knowledge.

Jim Patterson was so deeply in love with her when he went home that
night that he confessed to his mother. Mrs. Patterson had led up to the
subject by alluding to little Lucy while at the dinner-table.

"Edward," she said to her husband--both she and the rector had
been present at Madame's school entertainment and the tea-drinking
afterward--"did you ever see in all your life such a darling little girl
as the new cashier's daughter? She quite makes up for Miss Martha, who
sat here one solid hour, holding her card-case, waiting for me to talk
to her. That child is simply delicious, and I was so glad she made
mistakes."

"Yes, she is a charming child," assented the rector, "despite the fact
that she is not a beauty, hardly even pretty."

"I know it," said Mrs. Patterson, "but she has the worth of beauty."

Jim was quite pale while his father and mother were talking. He
swallowed the hot soup so fast that it burnt his tongue. Then he turned
very red, but nobody noticed him. When his mother came up-stairs to kiss
him good night he told her.

"Mother," said he, "I have something to tell you."

"All right, Jim," replied Sall