Natures Serial Story | Page 9

can be
rendered tenfold more effective."
Unmoved by his brother's raillery, Webb took the young girl's hand,
and looked at her so earnestly with his dark, grave eyes, that hers
drooped. "Sister Amy," he said, gently, "I was prepared to welcome
you on general principles, but I now welcome you for your own sake.
Rattle-brain Burt will make a good playmate, but you will come to me
when you are in trouble;" and he kissed her brow.
The girl looked up with a swift, grateful glance; it seemed odd to her,
even at that moment of strong and confused impressions, and with the
salutes of her guardians still warm upon her cheek, that she felt a sense
of rest and security never known before. "He will be my brother in very
truth," was the interpretation which her heart gave to his quiet words.
They all smiled, for the course of the reticent and undemonstrative
young man was rather unexpected. Burtis indulged in a ringing laugh,

as he said:
"Father, mother, you must both feel wonderfully relieved. Webb is to
look after Amy in her hours of woe, which, of course, will be frequent
in this vale of tears. He will console you, Amy, by explaining how tears
are formed, and how, by a proper regard for the sequence of cause and
effect, there might be more or less of them, according to your desire."
"I think I understand Webb," was her smiling answer.
"Don't imagine it. He is a perfect sphinx. Never before has he opened
his mouth so widely, and only an occasion like this could have moved
him. You must have unconsciously revealed a hidden law, or else he
would have been as mum as an oyster."
Leonard, meanwhile, had seated himself, and was holding little Ned on
his knee, his arm at the same time encircling shy, sensitive Johnnie,
who was fairly trembling with excited expectancy. Ned, with his thumb
in his mouth, regarded his new relative in a nonchalant manner; but to
the little girl the home-world was the world, and the arrival in its midst
of the beautiful lady never seen before was as wonderful as any fairy
tale. Indeed, that such a June-like creature should come to them that
wintry day--that she had crossed the terrible ocean from a foreign realm
far more remote, in the child's consciousness, than fairy-land--seemed
quite as strange as if Cinderella had stepped out of the storybook with
the avowed purpose of remaining with them until her lost slipper was
found. Leonard, big and strong as he was, felt and interpreted the
delicate and thrilling organism of his child, and, as Amy turned toward
him, he said, with a smile:
"No matter about me. We're old friends; for I've known you ever since
you were a little girl at the station. What if you did grow to be a young
woman while riding home! Stranger things than that happen every day
in storybooks, don't they, Johnnie? Johnnie, you must know, has the
advantage of the rest of us. She likes bread-and-butter, and kindred
realities of our matter-of-fact sphere, but she also has a world of her
own, which is quite as real. I think she is inclined to believe that you
are a fairy princess, and that you may have a wand in your pocket by

which you can restore to her doll the missing nose and arm."
Amy scarcely needed Leonard's words in order to understand the child,
for the period was not remote when, in her own mind, the sharp
outlines of fact had shaded off into the manifold mysteries of
wonderland. Therefore, with an appreciation and a gentleness which
won anew all hearts, she took the little girl on her lap, and said,
smilingly:
"I have a wee wand with which, I'm sure, I can do much for you, and
perhaps something for dolly. I can't claim to be a fairy princess, but I
shall try to be as good to you as if I were one."
Webb, with his book upside down, looked at the young girl in a way
which proved that he shared in Johnnie's wonder and vague anticipation.
Alfred, behind his grandfather's chair, was the only one who felt
aggrieved and disappointed. Thus far he had been overlooked, but he
did not much care, for this great girl could be no companion for him.
Amy, however, had woman's best grace--tact--and guessed his trouble.
"Alf," she said, calling him by his household name, and turning upon
him her large hazel eyes, which contained spells as yet unknown even
to herself--"Alf, don't be disappointed. You shall find that I am not too
big to play with you."
The boy yielded at once to a grace which he would be years in learning
to understand, and which