"Yes, yes! Bright blue!" exclaimed the girl, turning up her radiant face; "the color I can just remember in the blessed sky! You told me it was blue before! A bright blue coat----"
"Made loose to the figure," suggested Caleb.
"Yes! loose to the figure!" cried the blind girl, laughing heartily; "and in it you, dear father, with your merry eye, your smiling face, your free step, and your dark hair; looking so young and handsome!"
"Halloa! Halloa!" said Caleb. "I shall be vain presently."
"I think you are already," cried the blind girl, pointing at him, in her glee. "I know you, father! Ha, ha, ha! I"ve found you out, you see!"
How different the picture in her mind from Caleb, as he sat observing her! She had spoken of his free step. She was right in that. For years and years he never once had crossed that threshold at his own slow pace, but with a footfall made ready for her ear, and never had he, when his heart was heaviest, forgotten the light tread that was to render hers so cheerful and courageous.
"There we are," said Caleb, falling back a pace or two to form the better judgment of his work; "as near the real thing as sixpen"orth of halfpence is to sixpence. What a pity that the whole front of the house opens at once! If there was only a staircase in it now, and regular doors to the rooms to go in at! but that"s the worst of my calling. I"m always fooling myself, and cheating myself."
"You are speaking quite softly. You are not tired, father?"
"Tired," echoed Caleb, with a great burst in his manner, "what should tire me, Bertha? _I_ was never tired. What does it mean?"
To give the greater force to his words, he stopped himself in an imitation of two small stretching and yawning figures on the mantel-shelf, who were shown as in one eternal state of weariness from the waist upwards; and hummed a bit of a song. It was a drinking song, something about a sparkling bowl; and he sang it with an air of a devil-may-care voice, that made his face a thousand times more meager and more thoughtful than ever.
"What! you"re singing, are you?" said Tackleton, the toy-seller for whom he worked, putting his head in at the door. "Go it! _I_ can"t sing."
n.o.body would have thought that Tackleton _could_ sing. He hadn"t what is generally termed a singing face, by any means.
"I can"t afford to sing," said Tackleton. "I"m glad you can. I hope you can afford to work, too. Hardly time for both, I should think?"
"If you could only see him, Bertha, how he"s winking at me!" whispered Caleb. "Such a man to joke! you"d think, if you didn"t know him, he was in earnest, wouldn"t you, now?"
The blind girl smiled and nodded.
"I am thanking you for the little tree, the beautiful little tree,"
replied Bertha, bringing forward a tiny rose-tree in blossom, which, by an innocent story, Caleb had made her believe was her master"s gift, though he himself had gone without a meal or two to buy it.
"The bird that can sing and won"t sing must be made to sing, they say,"
grumbled Tackleton. "What about the owl that can"t sing, and oughtn"t to sing, and will sing; is there anything that he should be made to do?"
"The extent to which he"s winking at this moment!" whispered Caleb to his daughter. "Oh, my gracious!"
"Always merry and light-hearted with us!" cried the smiling Bertha.
"Oh! you"re there, are you?" answered Tackleton. "Poor idiot!"
He really did believe she was an idiot; and he founded the belief, I can"t say whether consciously or not, upon her being fond of him.
"Well! and being there--how are you?" said Tackleton, in his cross way.
"Oh! well; quite well. And as happy as even you can wish me to be. As happy as you would make the whole world, if you could!"
"Poor idiot!" muttered Tackleton. "No gleam of reason! Not a gleam!"
The blind girl took his hand and kissed it; held it for a moment in her own two hands; and laid her cheek against it tenderly, before releasing it. There was such unspeakable affection and such fervent grat.i.tude in the act, that Tackleton himself was moved to say, in a milder growl than usual:
"What"s the matter now?"
"Bertha!" said Tackleton, a.s.suming, for once, a little cordiality. "Come here."
"Oh! I can come straight to you. You needn"t guide me," she rejoined.
"Shall I tell you a secret, Bertha?"
"If you will!" she answered, eagerly.
How bright the darkened face! How adorned with light the listening head!
"This is the day on which little what"s-her-name, the spoilt child, Peerybingle"s wife, pays her regular visit to you--makes her ridiculous picnic here; ain"t it?" said Tackleton, with a strong expression of distaste for the whole concern.
"Yes," replied Bertha. "This is the day."
"I thought so!" said Tackleton. "I should like to join the party."
"Do you hear that, father!" cried the blind girl in delight.
"Yes, yes, I hear it," murmured Caleb, with the fixed look of a sleep-walker "but I do not believe it. It"s one of my lies, I"ve no doubt."
"You see I--I want to bring the Peerybingles a little more into company with May Fielding," said Tackleton. "I am going to be married to May."
"Married!" cried the blind girl, starting from him.
"She"s such a confounded idiot," muttered Tackleton, "that I was afraid she"d never understand me. Yes, Bertha! Married! Church, parson, clerk, gla.s.s-coach, bells, breakfast, bride-cake, favors, marrow-bones, cleavers, and all the rest of the tomfoolery. A wedding, you know; a wedding. Don"t you know what a wedding is?"
"I know," replied the blind girl, in a gentle tone. "I understand!"
"Do you?" muttered Tackleton. "It"s more than I expected. Well, on that account I want you to join the party, and to bring May and her mother.
I"ll send a little something or other, before the afternoon. A cold leg of mutton, or some comfortable trifle of that sort. You"ll expect me?"
"Yes," she answered.
She had drooped her head, and turned away; and so stood, with her hands crossed, musing.
"I don"t think you will," muttered Tackleton, looking at her; "for you seem to have forgotten all about it already. Caleb!"
"I may venture to say, I"m here, I suppose," thought Caleb. "Sir!"
"Take care she don"t forget what I"ve been saying to her."
"_She_ never forgets," returned Caleb. "It"s one of the few things she ain"t clever in."
"Every man thinks his own geese swans," observed the toy merchant, with a shrug. "Poor devil!"