Redbud sat down with a slight color in her cheek.

“I am very much obliged to you, Verty,” she said; “it was very good in you to make this for me—­though I don’t deserve it.”

“Indeed you do—­you are my queen:  and here is the right place for me.”

So saying, Verty smiled, and lay down at the feet of Redbud, leaning on the trellised bench, and looking up into that young lady’s eyes.

“You look so pretty!” he said, after a silence of some moments, “so nice and pretty, Redbud!”

“Do I?” said Redbud, smiling and blushing.

“And so good.”

“Oh, no—­I am not!”

“Not good?”

“Far from it, Verty.”

“Hum!” said Verty, “I should like to know how!  I might be better if you were at Apple Orchard again.”

“Better?”

“Yes, yes—­why can’t you live at Apple Orchard, where we were so happy?”

Redbud smiled.

“You know I am growing up now,” she said.

“Growing up?”

“Yes; and I must learn my lessons—­those lessons which cousin Lavinia can’t teach me!”

“What lessons are they?”

“Music, and dancing, and singing, and all.”

Verty reflected.

“Are they better than the Bible?” he said, at length.

Redbud looked shocked, and replied to the young savage: 

“Oh no, no!—­I hardly think they are important at all; but I suppose every young lady learns them.  It is necessary,” added the little maiden, primly.

“Ah, indeed? well, I suppose it is,” Verty replied, thoughtfully; “a real lady could’nt get along without knowing the minuet, and all that.  But I’m mighty sorry you had to go.  I’ve lost my teacher by your going.”

Redbud returned his frank look, and said: 

“I’m very sorry, Verty; but never mind—­you read your Bible, don’t you?”

“Yes,” Verty replied, “I promised you; and I read all about Joseph, and Nimrod, who was a hunter, and other people.”

“Don’t you ever read in the New Testament?” Redbud said.  “I wish you would read in that, too, Verty.”

And Redbud, with all the laughter gone away from her countenance, regarded Verty with her tender, earnest eyes, full of kindness and sincerity.

“I do,” Verty replied, “and I like it better.  But I’m very bad.  I don’t think I’m so good when you are away, Redbud.  I don’t do what you tell me.  The fact is, I believe I’m a wild Indian; but I’ll grow better as I grow older.”

“I know you will,” said the kind eyes, plainly, and Verty smiled.

“I’m coming to see you very often here,” he said, smiling, “and I’m going to do my work down at the office—­that old lady will let me come to see you, I know.”

Redbud looked dubious.

“I don’t know whether cousin Lavinia would think it was right,” she said.

And her head drooped, the long dusky lashes covering her eyes and reposing on her cheek.  It was hard for Redbud thus to forbid her boy-playmate, but she felt that she ought to do so.