of one eye; but he winked the other knowingly at
you, as if to ask if you saw the joke of the thing. Even the voice of
the owner of the establishment, chirruping some idle song, as I told
you, was one of the cheeriest sounds you ever heard. Joel, up at the
barn, forgot his dignity to salute it with a prolonged "Hillo!" and
presently appeared at the gate.

"I'm late, Joel," said the weak voice. It sounded like a child's near at
hand.

"We can trade in the dark, Lois, both bein' honest," he responded,
graciously, hoisting a basket of tomatoes into the cart, and taking out
a jug of vinegar.

"Is that Lois?" said Mrs. Howth, coming to the gate. "Sit still, child.
Don't get down."

But the child, as she called her, had scrambled off the cart, and stood
beside her, leaning on the wheel, for she was helplessly crippled.

"I thought you would be down tonight. I put some coffee on the stove.
Bring it out, Joel."

Mrs. Howth never put up the shield between herself and this member of
"the class,"--because, perhaps, she was so wretchedly low in the social
scale. However, I suppose she never gave a reason for it even to
herself. Nobody could help being kind to Lois, even if he tried. Joel
brought the coffee with more readiness than he would have waited on Mrs.
Howth.

"Barney will be jealous," he said, patting the bare ribs of the old
donkey, and glancing wistfully at his mistress.

"Give him his supper, surely," she said, taking the hint.

It was a real treat to see how Lois enjoyed her supper, sipping and
tasting the warm coffee, her face in a glow, like an epicure over some
rare Falernian. You would be sure, from, just that little thing, that no
sparkle of warmth or pleasure in the world slipped by her which she did
not catch and enjoy and be thankful for to the uttermost. You would
think, perhaps, pitifully, that not much pleasure or warmth would ever
go down so low, within her reach. Now that she stood on the ground, she
scarcely came up to the level of the wheel; some deformity of her legs
made her walk with a curious rolling jerk, very comical to see. She
laughed at it, when other people did; if it vexed her at all, she never
showed it. She had turned back her calico sun-bonnet, and stood looking
up at Mrs. Howth and Joel, laughing as they talked--with her. The face
would have startled you on so old and stunted a body. It was a child's
face, quick, eager, with that pitiful beauty you always see in deformed
people.