In lightninglike comparison she
brought to her mind the things she always considered beautiful--the
spring violets, the summer roses, that belt of wonderful color
skirting the afternoon horizon, and all the wonders of nature of which
her romantic world consisted. The contrast between these and the
shaking black dog, with his smudge of tangled hair hanging over his
eyes, shocked Jinnie's artistic sense.

"If----if you say he's beautiful, then he is," she stammered almost
inaudibly.

"Of course he is! What's your name?"

"Jinnie. Jinnie Grandoken... What's yours?"

"Blind Bobbie, or sometimes just Bobbie."

"Well, I'll call you Bobbie, if you want me to.... I like you awful
well. I feel it right in here."

She pressed the boy's fingers to her side.

"Oh, that's your heart!" he exclaimed. "I got one too! Feel it jump!"

Jinnie's fingers pressed the spot indicated by the little boy.

"My goodness," she exclaimed, "it'll jump out of your mouth, won't
it?"

"Nope! It always beats like that!"

"Where's your mother?" asked Jinnie after a space.

"I suppose she's dead, or Mag wouldn't a had me. I don't know very
much, but I 'member how my mother's hands feel. They were soft and
warm. She used to come to see me at the woman's house who died--the
one who give me to Mag."

"She must have been a lovely mother," commented Jinnie.

"She were! Mag tried to find her 'cause she said she was rich, and
when she couldn't, she beat me. I thought mebbe I'd find mother out in
the street. That's why I run away."

Jinnie thought of her own dead father, and the child's halting tale
brought back that one night of agony when Thomas Singleton died, alone
and unloved, save for herself. She wanted to cry, but instead she
murmured, "Happy in Spite," as Lafe had bidden her, and the melting
mood vanished. The cobbler and his club were always wonderfully
helpful to Jinnie.

"My mother told me onct," Bobbie went on, "she didn't have nothin' to
live for. I was blind, you see, and wasn't any good--was I?"

The question, pathetically put, prompted Virginia to fling back a
ready answer.

"You're good 'nough for me and Happy Pete," she asserted, "and Lafe'll
let you be his little boy too."

The blind child gasped, and the girl continued assuringly, "Peg'll
love you, too. She couldn't help it."

"Peg?" queried Bobbie.

"Oh, she's Lafe's wife. Happy Pete and me stay in her house."

The blind eyes flashed with sudden hope.

"Mebbe