This boy we had often seen, and bought his flowers, out
of pure compassion, and nothing more; but just at this time
as he stood presenting us his basket, a sudden whim, a start
of wayward fancy, seiz'd Louisa; and, without consulting me,
she calls him in, and beginning to examine his nosegays,
culls out two, one for herself, another for me, and pulling
out half a crown, very currently gives it him to change, as
if she had really expected he could have changed it: but the
boy, scratching his head, made his signs explaining his in-
ability in place of words, which he could not, with all his
struggling, articulate.
Louisa, at this, says: "Well, my lad, come up-stairs
with me, and I will give you your due," winking at the same
time to me, and beckoning me to accompany her, which I did,
securing first the street-door, that by this means, together
with the shop, became wholly the care of the faithful house-
maid.
As we went up, Louisa whispered to me that she had con-
ceiv'd a strange longing to be satisfy'd, whether the general
rule held good with regard to this changeling, and how far
nature had made him amends, in her best bodily gifts, for her
denial of the sublimer intellectual ones; begging, at the
same time, my assistance in procuring her this satisfaction.
A want of complaisance was never my vice, and I was so far
from opposing this extravagant frolic, that now, bit with the
same maggot, and my curiosity conspiring with hers, I enter'd
plum into it, on my own account.
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