There is an inexplicable sympathy between old age and childhood, an affinity which is as lovely as it is pathetic. During that first year in Lorrie Street, when no one was looking, Gerhardt often carried Vesta about on his shoulders and pinched her soft, red cheeks. When she got old enough to walk he it was who, with a towel fastened securely under her arms, led her patiently around the room until she was able to take a few steps of her own accord. When she actually reached the point where she could walk he was the one who coaxed her to the effort, shyly, grimly, but always lovingly. By some strange leading of fate this stigma on his family’s honor, this blotch on conventional morality, had twined its helpless baby fingers about the tendons of his heart. He loved this little outcast ardently, hopefully. She was the one bright ray in a narrow, gloomy life, and Gerhardt early took upon himself the responsibility of her education in religious matters. Was it not he who had insisted that the infant should be baptized? “Say ‘Our Father,’” he used to demand of the lisping infant when he had her alone with him. “Ow Fowvaw,” was her vowel-like interpretation of his words. “‘Who art in heaven.’” “‘Ooh ah in aven,’” repeated the child. “Why do you teach her so early?” pleaded Mrs. Gerhardt, overhearing the little one’s struggles with stubborn consonants and vowels. “Because I want she should learn the Christian faith,” returned Gerhardt determinedly. “She ought to know her prayers. If she don’t begin now she never will know them.” Mrs. Gerhardt smiled. Many of her husband’s religious idiosyncrasies were amusing to her. At the same time she liked to see this sympathetic interest he was taking in the child’s upbringing. If he were only not so hard, so narrow at times. He made himself a torment to himself and to every one else. On the earliest bright morning of returning spring he was wont to take her for her first little journeys in the world. “Come, now,” he would say, “we will go for a little walk.” “Walk,” chirped Vesta. “Yes, walk,” echoed Gerhardt. Mrs. Gerhardt would fasten on one of her little hoods, for in these days Jennie kept Vesta’s wardrobe beautifully replete. Taking her by the hand, Gerhardt would issue forth, satisfied to drag first one foot and then the other in order to accommodate his gait to her toddling steps. One beautiful May day, when Vesta was four years old, they started on one of their walks. Everywhere nature was budding and bourgeoning; the birds twittering their arrival from the south; the insects making the best of their brief span of life. Sparrows chirped in the road; robins strutted upon the grass; bluebirds built in the eaves of the cottages. Gerhardt took a keen delight in pointing out the wonders of nature to Vesta, and she was quick to respond. Every new sight and sound interested her.