'If you could only see him, Bertha, how he's winking at me!'
whispered Caleb. 'Such a man to joke! you'd think, if you didn't
know him, he was in earnest--wouldn't you now?'

The Blind Girl smiled and nodded.

'The bird that can sing and won't sing, must be made to sing, they
say,' grumbled Tackleton. 'What about the owl that can't sing, and
oughtn't to sing, and will sing; is there anything that HE should
be made to do?'

'The extent to which he's winking at this moment!' whispered Caleb
to his daughter. 'O, my gracious!'

'Always merry and light-hearted with us!' cried the smiling Bertha.

'O, you're there, are you?' answered Tackleton. 'Poor Idiot!'

He really did believe she was an Idiot; and he founded the belief,
I can't say whether consciously or not, upon her being fond of him.

'Well! and being there,--how are you?' said Tackleton, in his
grudging way.

'Oh! well; quite well. And as happy as even you can wish me to be.
As happy as you would make the whole world, if you could!'

'Poor Idiot!' muttered Tackleton. 'No gleam of reason. Not a
gleam!'