“In my beautiful new great-coat,” answered Caleb, glancing toward a clothes-rack in the room on which the burlap garment was carefully hung to dry.
“How glad I am you bought it, Father! And such a stylish tailor!”
“It’s too good for me,” said Caleb.
The blind girl rested from her work and laughed with delight. “Too good, Father! What can be too good for you?”
“I’m half ashamed to wear it, though,” said Caleb, watching the effect of what he said on her brightening face, “upon my word! When I hear the boys and people say behind me, ‘Hallo! Here’s a swell!’ I don’t know which way to look. And when the beggar wouldn’t go away last night; and when I said I am a very common man, said, ‘No, Your Honor! Bless Your Honor, don’t say that!’ I was quite ashamed. I really felt as if I hadn’t a right to wear it.”
Happy blind girl! How merry she was with the idea!
“I see you, Father,” she said, clasping her hands, “as plainly as if I had the eyes I never want when you are with me. A blue coat——”
“Bright blue,” said Caleb.
“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.