s pursuit of her.
Ah, the jilt! She will come again next year, and the silly winds will
forget her fickleness, paying court to her, while she dreamily crosses
the mountains.

On a Sunday afternoon in this sweet after-thought summer-time, two weeks
after Lizzi's wedding, Blind Benner and Hunch were half-sitting,
half-lying on a pile of leaves on the top of Bald Mountain. Hunch was
greatly distressed at not being able to quiet his friend's discontent,
which was very evident as he turned his sightless eyes to the sky at one
moment, and at the next rolled over and buried his face in the leaves.

"'Tain't no use in carryin' on thet way. Lizzi ain't here, an' thet's
all there is 'bout it."

"There ain't no comfert in her bein' away," Blind Benner groaned.

"It's the first time she's missed comin'; an' yer know, Benner, she's
mortil fond uv yer, an' she hed good reason fer stayin' er she'd ben
here."

"Thet's more comfertin' talk, Hunch."

If the blind man could have seen the smile that broke out on his
friend's face at this remark, he would have been amply repaid for it.
There was moisture, too, in the dwarf's eyes. He was grateful to the
friend who had said he comforted him. For a long time Blind Benner lay
face downwards in the leaves, and Hunch sat beside him in silence, his
untutored intelligence having caught the great secret of
sympathy--unobtrusiveness.

Until this time Lizzi had always been their companion on these Sunday
jaunts, but on this day she could not be found, and the two friends had
gone off in a desperate sort of way, resisting the old habit, yet unable
to break it.

Hunch openly declared that he loved no one but Blind Benner. The dwarf
was unseemly, disagreeable. He felt that he was pitied by those who saw
his deformity, and he loathed their compassion. In this list he did not
include Lizzi, who said a kind thing about his back, and Bill Kellar,
who was always making fun of it.

Lizzi once said:

"Hunch, don't mind about your back. You're so good to Blind Benner, that
I know you're an angel, and the hump on your back is only your wings
folded up."

He ever afterwards remembered her fondly, but he had no love for anyone
except Blind Benner, who did not know how hideous among men the dwarf
was.

Blind Benner's affection for Lizzi was the love of a mature man for the
woman who alone has been able to work upon his heart the spell that
enthralls it forever, yet it had no hope, and his only long