“I build you a house? Why, certainly, little brown eyes!”—taking her plump cheeks between his hands and gazing down into her upturned face with a smile that was singularly tender and bright; and all the more striking, as it gleamed forth with something of the suddenness of a flash of sunlight bursting through a cloud. It had been easy to see, indeed, as he approached us more nearly, that his preoccupations were not of a pleasant character. His slightly compressed lips imparted a shade of grimness to his look, and the mingled expression of weariness and resolution upon his features seemed to reveal some struggle going on in his breast. “Well, now,” said he, taking up a few of the blocks as he seated himself upon the stepping-stone, “what kind of a house shall we build?” “Did you ever!” looked we, all of us! “We-e-’ll, we-e-’ll—we’ll m-a-k-e—let me tell you—” “Saint Paul’s Church?” suggested the stranger,—“with a great, tall steeple!” “N-o-o-o! People don’t live in churches! M-a-k-e me—m-a-k-e me—oh! make me one just like our house!” cried she, with sudden triumph, placing her hand upon her new-found friend’s shoulder, thrusting her face almost against his, and opening wide at him her great brown eyes, as much as to say, now we have it! And away she skipped, backwards, on the tips of her toes, clapping her dimpled hands; chirping forth, meanwhile, sundry joyous, inarticulate notes; which I shall not merely say were as sweet as the song of the birds,—for they were warblings from the heart of a happy child,—which notes, I take it, are the loveliest that float upward into the dome of the high heavens,—and blessed whose fingers avail to call them forth! “Well, then,” began he, gathering together his blocks, “here are our bricks.” “_Bricks!_” cried she, in a voice that was almost shrill with surprise. “Why, it is not a brick house!” “Why, yes,” said he, carelessly glancing towards the house in which we were. “Lor’ me, _that’s_ not _our_ house! Did you think that was our house? Oh, how funny!” cried she, gleefully triumphing in her superior knowledge; then, running towards the open window, behind the curtains of which the amused spectators of this scene had retired, “Sister Lucy!” exclaimed she, “what do you think! This gentleman thought this was our house, and we are just on a visit here! Sister Lucy! Sister _Lucy_! Sister L-u-u-u-c-y!” Not receiving any reply from that alarmed young person, who had fled with me into one corner of the room, and with appalled look and appealing gestures was endeavoring to check the convulsive tittering of her friend Alice, who, in another corner, stood bowed together, weak and weeping with suppressed laughter, the little girl turned to her friend and said, “Sister Lucy has gone up-stairs, I reckon.”