Abinadab eyed the white hands, as his huge fingers just touched them, with a sort of awe; and, sighing, sat down on the very edge of the garden bench beside her. After a singular variety of efforts to take the most uncomfortable position of which he was capable, he succeeded to his satisfaction, and, growing then somewhat more at his ease, answered her question. “Flowers are sech _gassy_ things. They just blow out and that’s the end of ’em. _I_ like machine-shops best.” “Ah! well, that is a very useful liking. Do you ever invent machinery yourself?” “Sometimes,” said Abinadab, with a bashful smile. “There’s a little improvement of mine for carpet-sweepers up before the patent-office now. Don’t know whether they’ll run it through. Some of the chaps I saw in Boston told me they thought they would do’t in time; it takes an awful sight of time. I’m alwers fussing over something of the kind; alwers did, sence I was a baby; had my little windmills and carts and things; used to sell ’em to the other young uns. Father don’t like it. He wants me to stick to the farm. I don’t like farming. I feel like a fish out of water.--Mrs. Forceythe, marm!” He turned on her with an abrupt change of tone, so funny that she could with difficulty retain her gravity. “I heard you saying a sight of queer things the other day about heaven. Clo, she’s been telling me a sight more. Now, _I_ never believed in heaven!” “Why?” “Because I don’t believe,” said the poor fellow, with sullen decision, “that a benevolent God ever would ha’ made sech a derned awkward chap as I am!” Aunt Winifred replied by stepping into the house, and bringing out a fine photograph of one of the best of the St. Georges,--a rapt, yet very manly face, in which the saint and the hero are wonderfully blended. “I suppose,” she said, putting it into his hands, “that if you should go to heaven, you would be as much fairer than that picture as that picture is fairer than you are now.” “No! Why, would I, though? Jim-miny! Why, it would be worth going for, wouldn’t it?” The words were no less reverently spoken than the vague rhapsodies of his father; for the sullenness left his face, and his eyes--which are pleasant, and not unmanly, when one fairly sees them--sparkled softly, like a child’s.