Alice started, and turning her ear, seemed waiting for him to speak again, which he did soon.
“Little gal, will you come and sit in my lap?”
His voice was gentle and kind, but Alice did not care to be thus free with a stranger, so she replied, “I reckon I won’t do that, but I’ll sit nearer to you,” and she moved her stool so close by him that her head almost rested on his lap.
“You must ’scuse me,” she said, “if I don’t act like other children do—I’m blind.”
Very tenderly he smoothed her silken hair, and as he did so, she felt something drop upon her forehead. It was a tear, and wiping it away, she said:
“Man, be you hungry and tired, or what makes you cry?”
“I’m cryin’ for you, poor, unfortunate lamb;” and the tender-hearted Ben sobbed out aloud.
“Oh, I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t,” said the distressed child—“I’m used to it. I don’t mind it now.”
The ice was fairly broken, and a bond of sympathy established between the two.
“He must be a good man,” Alice thought; and when he began to question her of her home and friends, she replied to him readily.