"
"I don't know."
"When do you think you can be sure?"
"I don't know."
Jim stared helplessly at little Lucy. She stared
back sweetly.
"Please tell me whether two and seven make
six or eleven, Jim," said she.
"They make nine," said Jim.
"I have been counting my fingers and I got it
eleven, but I suppose I must have counted one finger
twice," said little Lucy. She gazed reflectively at
her little baby-hands. A tiny ring with a blue stone
shone on one finger.
"I will give you a ring, you know," Jim said,
coaxingly.
"I have got a ring my father gave me. Did you
say it was ten, please, Jim?"
"Nine," gasped Jim.
"All the way I can remember," said little Lucy,
"is for you to pick just so many leaves off the hedge,
and I will tie them in my handkerchief, and just be-
fore I have to say my lesson I will count those
leaves."
Jim obediently picked nine leaves from the haw-
thorn hedge, and little Lucy tied them into her
handkerchief, and then the Japanese gong sounded
and they went back to school.
That night after dinner, just before Lucy went to
bed, she spoke of her own accord to her father and
Miss Martha, a thing which she seldom did. "Jim
Patterson asked me to marry him when I asked him
what seven and two made in my arithmetic lesson,"
said she.
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