What might we do with him, d'ye think ?' Miss Chris thought for a minute with one finger pressed on her lip.
'We might let him go,' she said, with the air of one making rather a clever suggestion.
'Na, na, na; we canna permit such crimes to go unpunished.' 'Poor boy, perhaps he's very fond of cherries,' said Chris in extenuation.
Summers regarded the young woman dryly for a moment.
'Eh, eh, girl,' he said, 'ye'd begin to pity the very De'il himself if ye thought maybe he'd burnt his finger.' Dick was greatly comforted.

As a general thing he writhed under sympathy, but, strangely enough, he found it very sweet to hear her speaking words of pity on his behalf, and to feel her soft eyes bent upon him with gentle concern.

Probably no young woman quite understands the deep devotion she has inspired in the bosom of a small boy even when she realises--which is rare indeed--that she is regarded with unusual affection by Tommy or Billy or Jim.

Jim is probably very young; his hair as a rule appears to have been tousled in a whirlwind, his plain face is never without traces of black jam in which vagrant dust finds rest, and in the society of the adored one he is shy and awkward.

The adored one may think him a good deal of a nuisance, but deep down in the dark secret chamber of his heart she is enshrined a goddess, and worshipped with zealous devotion.