She was looking for Mr. Moore's house, she
told him. Did he know Mr. Moore, and his house which was somewhere
near? Not his new, great, big house, where the horrible things
took place of which she had read in the papers, but his little old
house, which she had heard was soon to be for rent, and which she
thought would be just the right size for herself and mother. Was
that it? That dear little place all smothered in vines? How
lovely! and what would the rent be, did he think? and had it a
back-yard with garden-room enough for her to raise pinks and
nasturtiums? and so on, and so on, while he stared with delighted
eyes, and tried to put in a word edgewise, and the boys - well,
they went through that strip of grass in just ten minutes. My
brave little Jinny had just declared with her most roguish smile
that she would run home and tell her mother all about this sweetest
of sweet little places, when a shout rose from the other side of
the street, and that collection of fifteen or twenty boys scampered
away as if mad, shouting in joyous echo of the boy at their head:
"It's to be chicken, heaping plates of ice cream and sponge cake."
By which token she knew that the ring had been found.
*******
When they brought this ring to me I would not have exchanged places
with any man on earth.
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