"Celia, I've notion that we ought to give Ben something. A sort of peace-offering, you know; for he feels dreadfully hurt about our suspecting him," said Thorny, at dinner that day.
"I see he does, though he tries to seem as bright and pleasant as ever. I do not wonder, and I've been thinking what I could do to soothe his feelings. Can you suggest anything?"
"Cuff-buttons. I saw some jolly ones over at Berryville,--oxidized silver, with dogs' heads on them, yellow eyes, and all as natural as could be. Those, now, would just suit him for his go-to-meeting white shirts,--neat, appropriate, and _in memoriam_."
Miss Celia could not help laughing, it was such a boyish suggestion; but she agreed to it, thinking Thorny knew best, and hoping the yellow-eyed dogs would be as balm to Ben's wounds.
"Well, dear, you may give those, and Lita shall give the little whip with a horse's foot for a handle, if it is not gone. I saw it at the harness shop in town, and Ben admired it so much that I planned to give it to him on his birthday."
"That will tickle him immensely; and if you'd just let him put brown tops to my old boots and stick a cockade in his hat when he sits up behind the phaeton, he'd be a happy fellow!" laughed Thorny, who had discovered that one of Ben's ambitions was to be a "tip-top groom."
"No, thank you; those things are out of place in America, and would be absurd in a small country place like this. His blue suit and straw hat please me better for a boy, though a nicer little groom, in livery or out, no one could desire, and you may tell him I said so."
"I will, and he'll look as proud as Punch; for he thinks every word you say worth a dozen from any one else. But wont _you_ give him something? Just some little trifle, to show that we are both eating humble pie, feeling sorry about the mouse money."
"I shall give him a set of school-books, and try to get him ready to begin when vacation is over. An education is the best present we can make him, and I want you to help me fit him to enter as well as we can. Bab and Betty, began, little dears,--lent him their books and taught all they knew; so Ben got a taste, and, with the right encouragement, would like to go on, I am sure."
