"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 she'll love me a little! Will she?"
"I hope so. Anyway, Lafe will. He loves everybody, even dogs. He'll love you; sure he will!"
The boy shook his head doubtfully.
"Nobody but mothers are nice to blind kids. Well--well--'cept you. I'd like to go to Lafe's house, though, but mebbe the woman wouldn't want me."
Jinnie had her own ideas about this, but because the child's tears fell hot upon her hands, the mother within her grew to greater proportions. Three times she repeated softly, "Happy in Spite."