hands for Rollo to roll the ball to
him, saying something at the same time which to Rollo seemed totally
unmeaning.

"He does not understand me, I suppose; but I know how I can explain it
to him."

So he rose from the floor, and, by means of a great deal of earnest
gesticulation and beckoning, he induced the boy to get up too, and
follow him. Rollo led the way into his uncle's chamber. The boy seemed
pleased, though a little timid, in going in.

"Uncle George," said Rollo, "here is a boy that cannot talk. Are you
willing that I should invite him to go with us to the Garden of Plants?"

"Yes," said Mr. George; "though I don't see how you are going to do it."

Rollo led the boy to the window, and pointed to the carriage, which
stood down before the door below. Then he opened a map of Paris which
lay upon the table, and found the Garden of Plants laid down upon it,
and showed it to the boy. Then he pointed to his uncle George, to
Jennie, and to himself, and then to the carriage. Then he made a motion
with his hand to denote going. By these gesticulations he conveyed the
idea quite distinctly to his new acquaintance that they were all going
to the Garden of Plants. He then finally pointed to the boy himself, and
also to the carriage, and looked at him with an inquiring look, which he
meant as an invitation to the boy to accompany them. The boy paid close
attention to all these signs; and when Rollo had finished, instead of
either nodding or shaking his head, in token of his accepting or
declining the invitation, as Rollo expected he would have done, he took
up the map, and, making certain mysterious gestures, which Rollo could
not comprehend, he walked off rapidly out of the room.

Rollo looked at his uncle George with an expression of great
astonishment on his countenance.

"What does that mean?" said he.

"Perhaps he has gone to ask his father or his mother," suggested Mr.
George.

"He has," exclaimed Rollo, "he has; that's it, I'm sure."

So Rollo went out immediately into the hall to wait till the boy came
back.

In a few minutes a door opened, which led into a suite of apartments in
the rear of the hotel, and the boy, with the map in his hand, came into
the hall, nodding his head, and looking very much pleased; talking all
the time, moreover, in a very voluble but perfectly unintelligible
manner. A moment after he came the door opened again, and a very
respectably dressed man, of middle age, came into th