"You don't think--" "Yes, Mr. Blossom?" "You don't think he's slipped one over on me?" "I think he will come as soon as he can; that is, as soon as he finds your daughter, you know. You don't want him to come without her, do you?" "If he does--" the voice dies into a whisper, faint yet vehement. Bending to catch his words, Lucy Bailey listens a moment, then straightens herself with compressed lips. Mr. Blossom is consistent, and expresses himself in his usual manner. Presently he finds his voice again, a whimper in it this time. "But ain't it hard luck, lady? I ask you, lady, if it ain't hard luck that I have to get a crook to fetch me my little gal. I ain't a con, lady! Booze was all my trouble--that an' not havin' the stren'th to work. I never got no longer jolt than a year. Now Pippin's a crook, born and bred. If he slips one over on me--" The voice sinks again into a hoarse mutter, and so lapses into silence. The face, puckered into sharp wrinkles of anxiety, seems to flatten and smooth itself till it lies like an old wax mask, ugly but peaceful. He will be quiet now for some time; Mrs. Bailey settles the bedclothes tidily and steals away. Her faithful attendance on the dying vagrant has not been fortunate for the other inmates; her firm gentle hand is missed everywhere in the house. Her husband confides to her, in the quiet hour before bedtime, that things have been kind of cuterin'. Aunt Mandy was some fractious to-day; she made Miss Pudgkins cry at dinner, callin' her a greedy old haddick; no way to talk to Miss Pudgkins, Lucy knew. Miss Pudgkins ought not to mind Aunt Mandy, Mrs. Bailey said; she knew full well what Aunt Mandy was. Pepper grass had to grow the way it grew; you couldn't expect it to be sweet gale, nor yet garden blooms. Yes, Mr. Bailey expected she knew that, but still, 'twas provoking, and in the face and eyes of the whole table. 'Twas true Miss Pudgkins had taken Brand's dish of prune sauce and put her empty one in its place. "The mean old thing!" Mrs. Bailey spoke sharply, and a spark came into her kind eyes. She could not bear to see the blind man "put upon." "Now I am glad Aunt Mandy spoke out. I hope you took the dish right straight away from her, Jacob!" Jacob looked troubled. "I couldn't do that, Lucy; women-folks, you know!" "No, you couldn't. I wish I'd been there." "But I give Brand another dish, and filled it plumb up, so he got more than she did after all." He looked up, and received a cheerful nod of approval. "That's good. Brand likes prune sauce, and he has so few pleasures. Not that he's anyways greedy or lick-lappin'; far from it; but he tastes more than others do. Did he finish the two-bushel basket? He aimed to finish it to-day." Jacob's brow clouded again. "He would have, but he couldn't lay his hand on his splints, and I was out of the way, so he had to wait a considerable time." "Where was Flora May? Didn't she help him? I told her be sure to!"