young thing
simply ignoring the hitherto impenetrable barrier! The clear young
eyes looked straight through it, the fresh young voice made nothing of
it, the playful fancies overleapt it. A quarry, indeed! Where had the
child got hold of the word?
Of a sudden the old man bent forward and lightly touched the laughing
face in token of surrender.
"It's an old bird you've winged, little girl," he said, as he rose to
his feet and stepped once more to the bell-rope; and this time he
really rang for his coat and overshoes.
* * * * *
"And so you've named this little chap Horatio?"
Dinner was over,--a very pleasant, natural kind of dinner, too, in
spite of the difficulty some of the family had found in eating
it,--and they were all gathered about a roaring woodfire, fortifying
themselves, with the aid of coffee, cigars, and chocolate-drops,--each
according to his kind,--for a game of blind-man's-buff. The small
scion of the house was seated on his grandfather's knee, playing with
his grandfather's fob, after the immemorial habit of small scions.
"Of course we named him Horatio!" It was Mrs. Crosby who answered,
and, as her father-in-law looked across at her face with the
firelight playing upon it, he seemed to remember that he had always
wished for a daughter.
"And what do you call him for short?"
"Just Horatio!" piped up little Alice, who was sitting on the rug at
the old gentleman's feet, gently pulling Rollo's long-suffering ears.
"Yes," said Mr. Thomas Crosby; "we have always been proud of the
name."
Then Di, perceiving a slight unsteadiness in the voice in which this
was said, stepped behind her grandfather's chair, and, dropping a
small kiss on the top of his head, looked across at her father, and
exclaimed:
"Oh, Papa! To think of our having bagged a grandfather!"
* * * * *
A Selection from the Catalogue of
G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS
Complete Catalogue sent on application
BY ANNA FULLER
A LITERARY COURTSHIP
Under the Auspices of Pike's Peak. 28th thousand. Illustrated.
Sextodecimo, gilt top. $1.25
"A delightful little love story. Like her other books it is bright
and breezy; its humor is crisp, and the general idea decidedly
original."--Boston Times.
A VENETIAN JUNE
Illustrated by George Sloane. 15th thousand. Sextodecimo, gilt top
$1.25
"Full of the picturesqueness, the novelty,
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