For an hour or more, nobody entered the shop.  Billy left in a little while for Boston.  Granny, crooning an old Irish song, busied herself upstairs in her bedroom.  Maida sat back in her chair, dreaming happily of her work.  Suddenly the bell tinkled, rousing her with a start.

It seemed a long time after the bell rang before the door opened.  But at last Maida saw the reason of the delay.  The little boy who stood on the threshold was lame.  Maida would have known that he was sick even if she had not seen the crutches that held him up, or the iron cage that confined one leg.

His face was as colorless as if it had been made of melted wax.  His forehead was lined almost as if he were old.  A tired expression in his eyes showed that he did not sleep like other children.  He must often suffer, too—­his mouth had a drawn look that Maida knew well.

The little boy moved slowly over to the counter.  It could hardly be said that he walked.  He seemed to swing between his crutches exactly as a pendulum swings in a tall clock.  Perhaps he saw the sympathy that ran from Maida’s warm heart to her pale face, for before he spoke he smiled.  And when he smiled you could not possibly think of him as sick or sad.  The corners of his mouth and the corners of his eyes seemed to fly up together.  It made your spirits leap just to look at him.

“I’d like a sheet of red tissue paper,” he said briskly.

Maida’s happy expression changed.  It was the first time that anybody had asked her for anything which she did not have.

“I’m afraid I haven’t any,” she said regretfully.

The boy looked disappointed.  He started to go away.  Then he turned hopefully.  “Mrs. Murdock always kept her tissue paper in that drawer there,” he said, pointing.

“Oh, yes, I do remember,” Maida exclaimed.  She recalled now a few sheets of tissue paper that she had left there, not knowing what to do with them.  She pulled the drawer open.  There they were, neatly folded, as she had left them.

“What did Mrs. Murdock charge for it?” she inquired.

“A cent a sheet.”

Maida thought busily.  “I’m selling out all the old stock,” she said.  “You can have all that’s left for a cent if you want it.”

“Sure!” the boy exclaimed.  “Jiminy crickets!  That’s a stroke of luck I wasn’t expecting.”

He spread the half dozen sheets out on the counter and ran through them.  He looked up into Maida’s face as if he wanted to thank her but did not know how to put it.  Instead, he stared about the shop.  “Say,” he exclaimed, “you’ve made this store look grand.  I’d never know it for the same place.  And your sign’s a crackajack.”

The praise—­the first she had had from outside—­pleased Maida.  It emboldened her to go on with the conversation.

“You don’t go to school,” she said.

The moment she had spoken, she regretted it.  It was plain to be seen, she reproached herself inwardly, why he did not go to school.