“Jinnie, pretty Jinnie. I’m goin’ to believe every word you’ve said, every word, and my stars’re all shinin’ so bright they’re just like them in the sky.”
Jinnie kissed the eager little face and left the child sitting on the floor, crooning contentedly to Happy Pete.
“Lafe told me once,” Jinnie whispered to herself on the way to the kitchen, “when a lie does a lot of good, it’s better than the truth if telling facts hurts some one.”
She joined Peggy, sighing, “I’m an awful liar, all right, but Bobbie’s happy.”
CHAPTER XXXVII
WHAT THE THUNDER STORM BROUGHT
In the past few weeks Jinnie Grandoken had been driven blindly into unknown places, forced to face conditions which but a short time before would have seemed unbearable. However, there was much with which Jinnie could occupy her time. Blind Bobbie was not well. He was mourning for the cobbler with all his boyish young soul, and every day Peggy grew more taciturn and ill. The funds left by Theodore were nearly gone, and Jinnie had given up her lessons. She was using the remaining money for their meagre necessities.
So slowly did the days drag by that the girl had grown to believe that the authorities would never bring Lafe to trial, exonerate him, and send him home. Then, too, Theodore was still in the hospital, and she thought of him ever with a sense of terrific loss. But the daily papers brought her news of him, and now printed that his splendid constitution might pull him through. It never occurred to her that her loved one would believe Lafe had shot him and Maudlin Bates. Theodore was too wise, too kindly, for such suspicions.