The wheels came close, and directly a cart stopped at the gate.  It was one of those little wagons that hucksters drive; only this seemed to be a home-made affair, patched up with wicker-work and bits of board.  It was piled up with baskets of vegetables, eggs, and chickens, and on a broken bench in the middle sat the driver, a woman.  You could not help laughing, when you looked at the whole turn-out, it had such a make-shift look altogether.

The reins were twisted rope, the wheels uneven.  It went jolting along in such a careless, jolly way, as if it would not care in the least, should it go to pieces any minute just there in the road.  The donkey that drew it was bony and blind of one eye; but he winked the other knowingly at you, as if to ask if you saw the joke of the thing.  Even the voice of the owner of the establishment, chirruping some idle song, as I told you, was one of the cheeriest sounds you ever heard.  Joel, up at the barn, forgot his dignity to salute it with a prolonged “Hillo!” and presently appeared at the gate.

“I’m late, Joel,” said the weak voice.  It sounded like a child’s near at hand.

“We can trade in the dark, Lois, both bein’ honest,” he responded, graciously, hoisting a basket of tomatoes into the cart, and taking out a jug of vinegar.

“Is that Lois?” said Mrs. Howth, coming to the gate.  “Sit still, child.  Don’t get down.”

But the child, as she called her, had scrambled off the cart, and stood beside her, leaning on the wheel, for she was helplessly crippled.

“I thought you would be down tonight.  I put some coffee on the stove.  Bring it out, Joel.”

Mrs. Howth never put up the shield between herself and this member of “the class,”—­because, perhaps, she was so wretchedly low in the social scale.  However, I suppose she never gave a reason for it even to herself.  Nobody could help being kind to Lois, even if he tried.  Joel brought the coffee with more readiness than he would have waited on Mrs. Howth.

“Barney will be jealous,” he said, patting the bare ribs of the old donkey, and glancing wistfully at his mistress.

“Give him his supper, surely,” she said, taking the hint.

It was a real treat to see how Lois enjoyed her supper, sipping and tasting the warm coffee, her face in a glow, like an epicure over some rare Falernian.  You would be sure, from, just that little thing, that no sparkle of warmth or pleasure in the world slipped by her which she did not catch and enjoy and be thankful for to the uttermost.  You would think, perhaps, pitifully, that not much pleasure or warmth would ever go down so low, within her reach.  Now that she stood on the ground, she scarcely came up to the level of the wheel; some deformity of her legs made her walk with a curious rolling jerk, very comical to see.  She laughed at it, when other people did; if it vexed her at all, she never showed it.  She had turned