e
would not smile, because Eyebright was looking straight into his face.

"I don't believe you are too big to sit on my knee," he said; and
Eyebright, nothing loth, perched herself on his lap at once. She was
such a fearless little thing, so ready to talk and to make friends,
that he was mightily taken with her, and she seemed equally attracted
by him, and chattered freely as to an old friend.

She told him all about her school, and the girls, and what they did in
summer, and what they did in winter, and about Top-knot, and the other
chickens, and her dolls,--for Eyebright still played with dolls by
fits and starts, and her grand plan for making "a cave" in the garden,
in which to keep label-sticks and bits of string and her cherished
trowel.

"Won't it be lovely?" she demanded. "Whenever I want any thing, you
know, I shall just have to dig a little bit, and take up the shingle
which goes over the top of the cave, and put my hand in. Nobody will
know that it's there but me. Unless I tell Bessie--," she added,
remembering that almost always she did tell Bessie.

Mr. Joyce privately feared that the trowel would become very rusty,
and Eyebright's cave be apt to fill with water when the weather was
wet; but he would not spoil her pleasure by making these objections.
Instead, he talked to her about his home, which was in Vermont, among
the Green Mountains, and his wife, whom he called "mother," and his
son, Charley, who was a year or two older than Eyebright, and a great
pet with his father, evidently.

"I wish you could know Charley," he said; "you are just the sort of
girl he would like, and he and you would have great fun together.
Perhaps some day your father'll bring you up to make us a visit."

"That would be very nice," said Eyebright. "But"--shaking her
head--"I don't believe it'll ever happen, because papa never does take
me away. We can't leave poor mamma, you know. She'd miss us so much."

Here Wealthy brought in supper,--a hearty one, in honor of Mr. Joyce,
with ham and eggs, cold beef, warm biscuit, stewed rhubarb, marmalade,
and, by way of a second course, flannel cakes, for making which
Wealthy had a special gift. Mr. Joyce enjoyed every thing, and made an
excellent meal. He was amused to hear Eyebright say, "Do take some
more rhubarb, papa. I stewed it my own self, and it's better than it
was last time," and to see her arranging her mother's tea neatly on a
tray.

"What a droll little pussy that is