There was an air of delicious peacefulness about the garden.  This also tended to soften that hardness of temper which only cripples who have once rejoiced in their strength can possibly know, I hope.

‘I like to see you look so,’ said the little girl, as I melted entirely under these sweet influences.  ’You looked so cross before that I was nearly afraid of you.’

And she took hold of my hand, not hesitatingly, but frankly.  The little fingers clasped mine.  I looked at them.  They were much more sun-tanned than her face.  The little rosy nails were shaped like filbert nuts.

‘Why were you not quite afraid of me?’ I asked.

‘Because,’ said she, ’under the crossness I saw that you had great love-eyes like Snap’s all the while. I saw it!’ she said, and laughed with delight at her great wisdom.  Then she said with a sudden gravity, ’You didn’t mean to make my father cry, did you, little boy?’

‘No,’ I said.

‘And you love him?’ said she.

I hesitated, for I had never told a lie in my life.  My business relations with Tom had been of an entirely unsatisfactory character, and the idea of any one’s loving the beery scamp presented itself in a ludicrous light.  I got out of the difficulty by saying,

‘I mean to love Tom very much, if I can.’

The answer did not appear to be entirely satisfactory to the little girl, but it soon seemed to pass from her mind.

That was the most delightful afternoon I had ever spent in my life.  We seemed to become old friends in a few minutes, and in an hour or two she was the closest friend I had on earth.  Not all the little shoeless friends in Raxton, not all the beautiful sea-gulls I loved, not all the sunshine and wind upon the sands, not all the wild bees in Graylingham Wilderness, could give the companionship this child could give.  My flesh tingled with delight. (And yet all the while I was not Hal the conqueror of ragamuffins, but Hal the cripple!)

‘Shall we go and get some strawberries?’ she said, as we passed to the back of the house.  ‘They are quite ripe.’

But my countenance fell at this.  I was obliged to tell her that I could not stoop.

’Ah! but I can, and I will pluck them and give them to you.  I should like to do it.  Do let me, there’s a good boy.’

I consented, and hobbled by her side to the verge of the strawberry-beds.  But when I foolishly tried to follow her, I stuck ignominiously, with my crutches sunk deep in the soft mould of rotten leaves.  Here was a trial for the conquering hero of the coast.  I looked into her face to see if there was not, at last, a laugh upon it.  That cruel human laugh was my only dread.  To everything but ridicule I had hardened myself; but against that I felt helpless.

I looked into her face to see if she was laughing at my lameness.  No:  her brows were merely knit with anxiety as to how she might best relieve me.  This surpassingly beautiful child, then, had evidently accepted me—­lameness and all—­crutches and all—­as a subject of peculiar interest.