"Just tie him there, at that second post, please, and you'd best put his blanket on him."
"Tie him? I'm goin' to ride him to the village to let the boys see him an' try him. I promised I would. Tie him! I shan't neither!"
"You certainly will not ride him to wherever those dreadful boys are. Nobody shall touch him, except you or me, and you ought not."
Fayette gave her one more angry glance, leaped from his saddle with a jerk, and bestowed upon the unoffending burro a vicious kick. Then he disappeared down the street, and Amy tied Pepita in haste, that she might look after the other animal also.
Just then she heard a step upon the path behind her, and the superintendent's pleasant voice, saying:—
"Well, young lady, you are certainly prompt, and promptness is a cardinal virtue—from a business man's point of view. See, here is the little girl for whom you are giving up your pet."
"Ah, indeed."
Amy smiled upon the child, who might have been ten years of age, and the fragile little creature appeared to smile in return. Then it came over the visitor that there was something out of common in that uplifted, happy face, and that the smile was not in response to her own greeting. The wide blue eyes looked upward, truly, but with the blank stare of one who sees nothing.
"Ah, is it so?" cried Amy, a second time, watching with what hesitation the little girl moved along the path, and how persistently she clung to her father's hand.
"Yes, blind; quite blind—from her birth," said Mr. Metcalf, sadly.