Half an hour passed.  Abby was dressing her beloved doll for an airing on the sidewalk,—­a promenade in a carriage, as the French say.  While thus occupied she half hummed, half sang, in a low voice, to herself, a popular May hymn.  When she reached the refrain, Larry joined, and Delia appeared at the door just in time to swell the chorus with honest fervor: 

  “See, sweet Mary, on thy altars
    Bloom the fairest flowers of May. 
  Oh, may we, earth’s sons and daughters,
    Grow by grace as fair as they!”

“If you please,” said Delia at its close, “there’s a man below stairs who says he has something for you both.”

“For us!” exclaimed the children, starting up.

“Yes:  your mother sent me to tell you.  He says he was told to say as how he had a May-basket for you.”

“A May-basket, Delia?  What!  All lovely flowers like those I told you about?” cried the little girl.

“Sure, child, and how could I see what was inside, and it so carefully done up?” answered Delia, evasively.

They did not question further, but rushed downstairs to see for themselves.

In the kitchen waited a foreign-looking man, with swarthy skin, and thin gold rings in his ears.  On the floor beside him was a large, rough packing-basket.

“That a May-basket!” exclaimed Abby, hardly able to restrain the tears of disappointment which started to her eyes.

“Si, signorita,” replied the man.

Her frown disappeared.  It was certainly very nice to be addressed by so high-sounding a title.  She wished she could get Delia to call her signorita.  But no; she felt sure that Delia never would.

“Pshaw!  It’s only a joke!” said Larry, after a moment.  “Somebody thinks this is April-fool Day, I guess.”

“Have patience for a leetle minute, please,” said the man, as he cast away the packing bit by bit.  The children watched him with eager interest.  By and by he took out a little bunch of lilies of the valley, which he handed to Abby with a low bow.  Next he came to something shrouded in fold after fold of tissue-paper.

“And here is the fairest lily of them all,” he said, in his poetic Italian fashion.

“What can it be, mother?” asked the little girl, wonderingly.

Mrs. Clayton smiled.  “It is from Sartoris’, the fine art store where you saw the beautiful pictures last week; that is all I know about it,” she replied.

The man carefully placed the mysterious object on the table.

“It is some kind of a vase or an image,” declared Larry.

“Why, so it is!” echoed Abby.

In another moment the tissue veil was torn aside, and there stood revealed a beautiful statue of the Blessed Virgin.

“Oh!” exclaimed Larry, in delight.

“How lovely!” added his sister.

The image was about two feet high, and of spotless Parian, which well symbolized the angelic purity it was intended to portray.  To many, perhaps, it might appear simply a specimen of modeling, but little better than the average.  However, those who looked on it with the eyes of faith saw before them, not so much the work itself, as the ideal of the artist.