One day, when the old man was sitting in his arm-chair under the apple trees in the yard, Grey came up to him, with his straw hat hanging down his back, his blue eyes shining like stars, and all over his face that sweet smile which made him so beautiful. Folding his little white hands together upon his grandfather's knee, he stood a moment gazing fixedly into the sad face, which never relaxed a muscle, though every nerve of the wretched man was strung to its utmost tension and quivering with pain. The searching blue eyes of the boy troubled him, for it seemed as if they pierced to the depths of his soul and saw what was there.
"Da-da," Grey said at last. "Take me, peese; I'se tired."
Oh, how the old man longed to snatch the child to his bosom and cover his face with the kisses he had so hungered to give him, but in his morbid state of mind he dared not, lest he should contaminate him, so he restrained himself with a mighty effort, and replied: "No, Grey, no; I cannot take you. I am tired, too."
"Is you sick?" was Grey's next question, to which his grandfather replied: "No, I am not sick," while he clasped both his hands tightly over his head out of reach of the baby fingers, which sometimes tried to touch them.
"Is you sorry, then?" Grey continued, and the grandfather replied: "Yes, child, very, very sorry."
There was the sound of a sob in the old man's voice, and Grey's blue eyes opened wider as they looked wistfully at the lips trembling with emotion.
"Has you been a naughty boy?" he said; and, with a sound like a moan, Grandpa Jerrold replied: "Yes, yes, very, very naughty. God grant you may never know how naughty."
"Then why don't Auntie Hannah sut oo up in 'e bed'oom?" Grey asked, with the utmost gravity, for, in his mind, naughtiness and being shut up in his aunt's bedroom, the only punishment ever inflicted upon him, were closely connected with each other.
Almost any one would have smiled at this remark, but Grandpa Jerrold did not. On the contrary there came into his eyes a look of horror as he exclaimed: "Shut me in the bedroom! That would be dreadful indeed."
Then, springing up, he hurried away into the field and disappeared behind a ledge of rocks, where, unseen by any eye save that of God, he wept more bitterly than he had ever done before.
"Why, oh, why," he cried, "must this innocent baby's questions torture me so? and why can I never take him in my arms or lay my hands upon him lest they should leave a stain?"