"Yes, I told him. He liked it fust rate. Mis' Kennett said she'd let her childern stay f'rever with yer, ef they never larned a thing, 'nd so would I, dear, dear Miss Kate! Oh, I bet God would like to see you in that pretty blue dress!" and he hung over me with a speechless caress; his first, and last indeed, for he was shy and reticent in emotion, and never once showed his affection in the presence of the other children. [Illustration: PAULINA'S "GOOD-MORNINGS TO JOHNNY CASS."] CHAPTER VII. PATSY FINDS HIS THREE LOST YEARS. "Now God be thanked for years enwrought With love which softens yet. Now God he thanked for every thought Which is so tender it has caught Earth's guerdon of regret." Well, Jim did not succeed in finding his girl, although he "looked" industriously. Either the "millingnaries" did not smile upon him and his slender bank account, or they were not willing to wash the dishes and halve the financial responsibilities besides; but as the winter days slipped by, we could not help seeing that Patsy's pale face grew paler and his soft dark eyes larger and more pathetic. In spite of better care than he had ever had before, he was often kept at home by suffering all too intense for a child to bear. It was almost as if a sixth sense came to him in those days, so full was he of strange thoughts and intuitions. His eyes followed me wistfully as I passed from one child to another, and when my glance fell upon him, his loving gaze seemed always waiting for mine. When we were alone, as he pored over picture-books, or sat silently by the window, watching the drops chase each other down the pane, his talk was often of heaven and the angels. [Illustration: "HE SAT SILENTLY BY THE WINDOW."] Daga Ohlsen had left us. Her baby eyes had opened under Norway skies, but her tongue had learned the trick of our language when her father and mother could not speak nor understand a word, and so she became a childish interpreter of manners and customs in general. But we knew that mothers' hearts are the same the world over, and, lacking the power to put our sympathy in words, we sent Daga's last bit of sewing to her mother. Sure enough, no word was needed; the message explained itself; and when we went to take a last look at the dear child, the scrap of cardboard lay in the still hand, the needle threaded with yellow wool, the childish knot, soiled and cumbersome, hanging below the pattern just as she had left it. It was her only funeral offering, her only funeral service, and was it not something of a sermon? It told the history of her industry, her sudden call from earthly things, and her mother's tender thought. It chanced to be a symbol, too, as things do chance sometimes, for it was a butterfly dropping its cocoon behind it, and spreading its wings for flight.