ively--simply as
if offering a suggestion which might prove of interest.

"It begun with a 'L,'" he said; "thar was a name on it, and it begun with
a 'L'."

CHAPTER XI

It was upon the evening after this interview with Mr. Stamps that Tom
broached to his young companion a plan which had lain half developed in
his mind for some time.

They had gone into the back room and eaten together the supper Mornin had
prepared with some extra elaboration to do honour to the day, and then
Sheba had played with her doll Lucinda while Tom looked on, somewhat
neglecting his newspaper and pipe in his interest in her small pretence
of maternity.

At last, when she had put Lucinda to sleep in the wooden cradle which had
been her own, he called her to him.

"Come here," he said, "I want to ask you a question."

She came readily and stood at his knee, laying her hands upon it and
looking up at him, as she had had a habit of doing ever since she first
stood alone.

"How would you like some new rooms?" he said, suggestively.

"Like these?" she answered, a pretty wonder in her eyes.

"No," said Tom, "not like these--bigger and brighter and prettier. With
flowers on the walls and flowers on the carpets, and all the rest to
match."

He had mentioned this bold idea to Molly Hollister the day before, and
she had shown such pleasure in it, that he had been quite elated.

"It's not that I need anything different," he had said, "but the
roughness and bareness don't seem to suit her. I've thought it often when
I've seen her running about."

"Seems like thar ain't nothin' you don't think of, Tom," said Molly,
admiringly.

"Well," he admitted, "I think about her a good deal, that's a fact. She
seems to have given me a kind of imagination. I used to think I hadn't
any."

He had imagination enough to recognise at the present moment in the
child's uplifted face some wistful thought she did not know how to
express, and he responded to it by speaking again.

"They'll be prettier rooms than these," he said. "What do you say?"

Her glance wandered across the hearth to where the cradle stood in the
corner with Lucinda in it. Then she looked up at him again.

"Prettier than this," she repeated, "with flowers. But don't take this
away." The feeling which stirred her flushed her childish cheek and made
her breath come and go faster. She drew still nearer to him.

"Don't take this away," she repeated, and laid her hand on his.

"W