would have had matters of education to insist upon--
perhaps of clothing and hygiene. She would have
had her secrets--hidden paths on which she wandered
alone--things she could never tell to one in authority.
As it was, bound together as they were by only a mutual
recognition, their joy in each other knew no bounds.
To Masie he was a refuge, some one who understood
every thought before she had uttered it; to O'Day she
was a never-ending and warming delight.

And so this man of forty-five folded his arms about
this child of ten, and held her close, the opening chalice
of her budding girlhood widening hourly at his touch--
a sight to be reverenced by every man and never to be
forgotten by one privileged to behold it.

And with the intimacy which almost against his will
held him to the little shop, there stole into his life a
certain content. Springs long dried in his own nature
bubbled again. He felt the sudden, refreshing sense of
those who, after pent-up suffering, find the quickening
of new life within.

Mike noticed the change in the cheery greetings and
in the passages of Irish wit with which the new clerk
welcomed him whenever be appeared in the store, and
so did Kling, and even the two Dutchies when Felix
would drop into the cellar searching for what was still
good enough to be made over new. And so did Kitty
and John and all at their home.