Miss Higginson called him a "most
exasperating boy," and she wasn't far wrong. He teased Kate and Eva so
much that they hated to go into his room, or even in the gondola when
he took, now and then, an airing. But, to everybody's surprise, he and
Stevie got on better than was expected. Part of the secret of this lay
in the fact that Dave had lived in America all his life--had just come
from there, and was able to give Stevie long and glowing accounts of
that country and everything in it--as seen from the other boy's
standpoint. Stevie's rapt attention and implicit faith in him
flattered Dave, and beside, though he wouldn't have acknowledged it for
the world, he found the little fellow's willing ministrations very much
pleasanter than those of the French valet, whose patience he had soon
exhausted. And Stevie felt so sorry for the boy who had dearly loved
to run and leap and climb, and who now lay so helpless that he could
not even sit up for five minutes. Dave's heart was very sore over it
sometimes--once or twice he had let Stevie see it; and then he had no
dear loving mother as Stevie had, and his papa had never talked to him
as Stevie's papa did to his little boy.
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