Opening the latticed gate he walked toward the group, and lifting the basket, sat down on the steps.

“Why did you not wait, and invite me to come out and inspect your pretty pets?”

“I thought your mother could not spare you this first afternoon, she had so much to say to you; but I am very glad you have not quite forgotten us.  Do you see how tall the China geese have grown?  When the gander stretches his neck he can touch my shoulder with his bill.  Isn’t he beautiful?”

“Decidedly the handsomest gander of my acquaintance.  When I went away you were trying to find a name for him.  Did you succeed?”

“Yes, I call him Alcibiades.”

“Why?  Do you wish to insult the memory of the great Athenian?”

“I wish to compliment him, because he was so graceful and beautiful, and was so fond of birds he carried them about in his bosom.  My Alcibiades is so good-natured he never fights or hisses at my pigeons, and just now one of them lighted on his back, and picked up the barley that had fallen on his feathers.  Mr. Hargrove promises me that just as soon as I can make money enough to pay the brickmason, he will have a large cemented basin built near the pump, where the geese and ducks can swim about every day.”

“How do you propose to make money?” asked Douglass, lifting one of the rabbits into his lap, and offering it a crisp morsel of celery.

“Don’t you know that I sell the eggs?  Those of the white guineas bring three dollars a dozen, and I could sell more of the white turkeys, at the same price, than we can spare.  Our new pigeon palace was paid for entirely out of the poultry money.”

“Who keeps the poultry book?  Have you at last learned to multiply fractions?”

She looked up, smiling into his laughing eyes.

“Mr. Lindsay, I am not so stupid as when you tried so hard to explain that sum to me.  I keep the account, and your uncle examines it once a week.  He says it will teach me to be accurate in my figures.”

“What did you pay for your rabbits?  I have a pair of Angolas for you, but the man from whom I bought them advised me not to remove them until all danger of cold weather had passed, as they are quite young.”

“Thank you, Mr. Lindsay.  You are very kind to remember that I wished for them last year.  I did not buy these——­”

She raised the rabbit from her apron, and rubbed her cheek against its soft fur, then added in a lower and touching tone: 

“My mother sent them to me.  I can’t tell how she found out that of all things I wished most to have them, but you know, sir, that mothers seem inspired, they always understand what is in their children’s hearts and minds, and need no telling.  So I love these more than all my pets; they are the latest message from my mother.”

She held out her hand, and interpreting the expression in her superb eyes, he placed the other rabbit in her arms, and for a moment she pressed them close.