“Well, when you get through, and if you are not otherwise engaged, I’d like to have your company for a walk. You see,” he adds, with a smile, “I haven’t any eyes, myself, to find the way with; and it’s such a fine evening I believe I’d like to go—yes, as far as the Park.” The boy looks up into the blind man’s face, Kate thinks, as if he would be willing to go to the ends of the earth with him. “Yes, sir, I’ll be back in a few minutes,” he says, hurrying away. In one corner of the Park there is a shady, secluded nook—a clump of trees all overgrown with vines, with rustic seats underneath. As Walter and his companion rest there after their long walk, the moonbeams shining softly down between the leaves, all at once a sob breaks the stillness, followed by another and another, and then they come thick and fast. Now the Lieutenant does not ask, “What’s the matter, little boy?” as a great many thoughtless people would; for he remembers very well that one doesn’t like to be asked such questions when one is crying. Besides, doesn’t he know what the matter is? He can picture to himself the wearisome life the poor child leads—ill-fed, ill-sheltered, ill-clad, half the year pinched with hunger and cold, half the year breathing the close, pent-up air of some wretched tenement—in his brave struggle to help his widowed mother, not always able to find work; knocked about by ruffian newsboys, sneered at by thoughtless schoolmates, little heeded or noticed by anybody; till he looks downhearted, as Kate says, and the very tones of his voice are grown dreary and sorrowful. Thinking of all this, the Lieutenant cannot sit there like a block of stone, and listen to those stifled sobs. So, as there is nothing to be said, he leans over, and with that one arm of his about the slight figure, draws it close to his side. “Oh, you’re so good!” murmurs the tearful voice, as the lad rests his head against the friendly shoulder. “It’s that that makes such a baby of me. I can’t help it. Other folks ain’t like that. Other folks don’t talk to me pleasant about this and that as you did all the way. Other folks—oh!” and with that the slender form is shaken again with sobs. “Ah, but those other folks who treat you so, you are going to make them sorry for it, some day.” “How?” The dreary young voice is full of wonder.