"A pretty name--like she was!" he muttered, his eyes fastened on the child's face. It was as if something he saw there was awakening the memories. "It was Keineth."
"Why, that is my name!"
"Keineth--Keineth what?" he cried.
"Keineth Randolph."
"You are John Randolph's girl--her son's girl."
"You mean my grandmother? That--lady--you loved was my daddy's mother?"
The old man was half laughing, half crying. He held Keineth's arms with his trembling fingers.
"Of course--the same blue eyes--and music! How your grandmother loved music! How her fingers could play, make sounds that'd tear the heart right out of you!" He shook his head. "And she wouldn't have me--my money couldn't buy her! After she died I stood in the Square and watched them take her away from the house--saw the flowers I had sent go with her! I saw the man she had chosen instead of me walk out, too. He had two children by the hand--the little fellow was your father. I went away from New York then--" He drew his hands across his eyes as though to brush away the haunting pictures. "And you're Keineth!" he finished.
Keineth told him of her daddy and of her coming from New York to live with the Lees until her father returned. She had almost forgotten Pilot in her deep sympathy for this lonely old man who had loved her father's mother--and had loved her for so many, many years! But Pilot suddenly barked!
"Pilot thinks he belongs to us because he once saved my life," Keineth explained, going on, then, to tell the story of her narrow escape from drowning. Perhaps the old man heard her, though his face still wore a far-away look as if he had not yet been able to bring himself back from that dear past the child's eyes had awakened.