e her cry. Jinnie hoped not, for she
disliked to do that. It was so childlike, so like Blind Bobbie, who
always had either a beatific smile on his pale lips, or a mist shining
in his rock-gray eyes.

At length Lafe sighed a long, deep-drawn sigh, and smiled.

"Jinnie," he began----

"Yes, Lafe."

"I've been wonderin' if you remember the story of the little feller
God sent to Peg an' me--the one I told you would a been six years
old."

"Yes, I remember, Lafe."

"An' how good Peggy was----"

"Oh, how good Peggy always is!" interjected Jinnie.

"Yes," breathed Lafe, dreamily. "May God bless my woman in all her
trials!"

Jinnie hitched her chair nearer his and slipped her arm about his neck
soothingly.

"She doesn't have trials you don't share, Lafe," she declared.

Lafe straightened up.

"Yes, Peg has many, lassie, I can't help 'er with, an' she'll have a
many more. To get to tell you something, Jinnie, I asked Peg to take
Bobbie out with 'er. We can't turn the little feller from the club
room when he ain't out with Peg; can we, Jinnie?"

"Of course not," agreed Jinnie, nodding.

"So when Peg said she was goin' out," proceeded Lafe, gravely, "I
says, thinkin' of the things I wanted to say to you, I said to Peggy,
'Take the little blind chap along with you, Peggy dear,' an' without a
word she put the youngster into his clothes an' away they went."

Jinnie's curiosity was growing by the minute.

"And you're going to tell me now, Lafe?"

"An' now I'm goin' to tell you, Jinnie."

But he didn't tell her just then. Instead he sat looking at her with
luminous eyes, and the expression in them--that heavenly
expression--compelled Jinnie to kneel beside him, and for a little
while they sat in silence.

"Dear child," Lafe murmured, dropping a tender hand on her shining
head, "dear, dear girl!"

"It must be a joyful thing, Lafe, for your face shines as bright as
Bobbie's stars."

"I'm blessed happy to-day!" he sighed, with twitching lips.

Jinnie took his hand in hers and smoothed it fondly.

"What is it, Lafe, dear?" she asked.

"Do you want to kneel while I tell you?" queried the cobbler.

"Yes, right here."

"Then look right at me, Jinnie lass!"

Jinnie _was_ looking at him with her whole soul in her eyes.

"I'm looking at you, Lafe," she said.

"An' don't take your eyes from me; will you?"

"Sure not!"

It must be a great surprise for Lafe to act like this, thought the
girl.

"Lassie,"