mber him as a boy. Weren't they one summer at the Mottville
Hotel? He's years younger than you."

Molly gathered courage.

"He doesn't know how old I am," she responded, "and his mother loves
me, too. They were with me three summers." Then, remembering the man's
statement, she added, "Ages don't count nowadays. And I _will_ be
happy."

"You'll get happiness with _me_, not with _him_," said an angry voice.
"Has he ever told you he loved you?"

"No, no, indeed not. But he was here to-day! His mother's ill and
wanted me to come as her companion, but I couldn't leave father right
now."

"Does he know you love him?"

An emphatic negative ejaculation from Molly brought a sigh of relief
from the man.

"Forget him!" said he. "Now I'm going. I shall come back to-night, and
_remember_ this. I'll leave no stone unturned to find that boy. I've
always longed for one, and I'll move Heaven and earth to find him."

Virginia saw him whirl about, open the door, and stride out.

Molly Merriweather stood for a few minutes in silence, trembling.

"I didn't dare to tell him the baby was blind," she whispered, too low
for Jinnie to hear.

Then she slowly glided away, leaving the girl under the table, with
her pail full of cats, and the fiddle. Presently Virginia crawled out
cautiously, the pail on her arm, and hugging her fiddle, she opened
the door swiftly, and disappeared down the road, running under the
tall trees.

CHAPTER IV

JINNIE TRAVELS

Virginia took the direction leading to the station. Many a time she
had watched the trains rush by on their way to New York, but never in
those multitudinous yesterdays had it entered her mind that some day
she would go over that same way, to be gone possibly forever. The wind
was blowing at such a terrific rate that Jinnie could scarcely walk.
There was no fear in her heart, only deep solemnity and a sense of awe
at the magnificence of a storm. She had left the farmhouse so suddenly
that the loneliness of parting had not then been forced upon her as it
was now; the realization was settling slowly upon the clouded young
mind.

She was a mere puppet in the hands of an inexorable fate, which had
shown her little mercy or benevolence.

Out of sight of the Merriweather homestead, she kept to the path along
the highway, now and then shifting the pail from one hand to the
other, and clasping the beloved fiddle to her breast. Once she looked
down to find Milly Ann peeping abov