University of Virginia Library

24. XXIV.
THE FLIGHT OF CALEB THORNE.

[ILLUSTRATION] [Description: 731EAF. Page 372. In-line Illustration. Image of a man kneeling before a little girl who is reclining on a sofa.]

BLIND Alice lay upon the
lounge in Mrs. Grayle's sitting-room.
She was motionless,
and very pale; she
scarcely breathed; but now
and then, at long intervals, a
sigh heaved her fair young
bosom, across which her pallid
little hands lay clasped.
By her side knelt Caleb
Thorne, gazing upon her sweet
face with a countenance dark
with trouble.

“Father!” murmured the child.

The inebriate bowed his head and kissed her. As he did so,
his frame shook, and two scalding tears fell upon her brow.

“O, don't feel bad, don't feel bad!” pleaded Alice, winding her
tender arms around his neck. “I shall be well to-day. I got
so cold and tired in the storm, last night — that 's all. O, we
will be so happy now, dear father! You will not leave me any
more; and I shall have my brother Martin with me, sometimes
shan't I? He has been so good — so good to me!”

“O, my child!” sobbed Caleb, — “everybody is good to you
except your father! Your father, Alice, — his love is a curse.
It would be better for you if he were dead!”

His face contracted fiercely with self-hatred, and his passionate
hands tore his hair convulsively.

“O, no, no!” cried Alice, pierced with anguish. “Don't say
so! You have meant to do the best you could for me, and I
love you all the same — all the same, dear father! I would not
have you dead. You will be better now, I am sure.”

“And I will work, my darling!” said Caleb, with sudden
resolution. “I will be a demon and a curse no more. O, God!”
he prayed, wringing his hands, and turning his haggard face upward,
“help me, — be my support! Not for my sake, for I am
unworthy; but for the sake of my child!”

Alice shuddered. Her father's prayer frightened her. It
seemed full of wrath and terror, — so unlike the sweet peace and
child-like resignation of her mother's prayers, which she remembered
so well.

“My darling,” Caleb went on, after a pause, “I have known
what hell is. I have been in hell!”

“O!” shrieked Alice, faintly, covering her face with her
hands.

“You do not understand me,” her father hastened to say.
“The fires of hell are evil passions. Ah, you don't know how
they burn and torture the soul! Our wickedness kindles them;
but the punishment is sent for our good, is it not? Tell me
what you think, my child; you are so pure and good, you understand
these things better than I do.”

“God loves us all, — I am sure of it, dear father. He would
not punish us, if it was not for our good. I thought of it, the

other night, when I put my hand in the flame of the lamp. I
could not see the flame, and my hand might have burned up, if
the pain had not told me to take it away. Pain is a good friend,
father.”

“O, if we were wise, so that pain might always teach us while
it tortures us! If we would snatch our hands from the fires of sin
when they burn us!” moaned Caleb. “But I will be wise now,
my child. You shall be with me, and tell me these things with
your pure lips. They will make me strong, and keep me strong.”

“And the home you spoke of —”

“We will go to it as soon as you are able, Alice. I was not
dreaming when I told you of it. But in the night and the storm
I lost my way. I would go and find it this morning, and do some
work I have promised to do, — but you cannot go with me, and I
dare not leave you alone.”

Alice clung to her father's arm. The thought of being separated
from him for a moment alarmed her. She knew too well
what it was to lose him, and remain for weeks ignorant of his
fate. Yet something whispered in her ear, “Trust!” Peace
fell like dew upon her spirit, and she told her father that he need
not fear to leave her, if duty called him away.

“Yes, I ought to go, — I should be earning money to support
us,” Caleb murmured. “But I dare not trust you out of
my sight.” He looked wildly around him, as if even then he feared
the approach of evil to his child. “You are blind — you need a
protector always with you, Alice. And who should be your protector
but your father?”

Alice smiled sadly. Perhaps she thought that he who would
thus protect her was he above all others who had done her harm.
Caleb understood her so, at least.

“I am a foolish man,” said he, — “I know it. I am weak
and fearful. But I will be so no longer. These people have
been good to you — I will trust you with them still.”

“How good they have been!” exclaimed the blind girl, with
tears. “At a time, too, when they were so distressed. The
woman who found us in the street, and was so kind to us, — she is
some one they love, I should think; but she did not wish that
they should see her. How kind it was in them to forget their
own trouble, to be kind to us!”

“Yes, yes; I will trust you with them,” said Caleb. “And
now I will leave you for a little while. Do not fear but I shall
be back at noon.”

The parting between Alice and her father was an affecting one.
It brought tears to Ellen's eyes as she watched them from the
kitchen-door. As soon as Caleb was gone, the young girl ran
forward, threw herself down by the lounge, and buried her face,
weeping, in the curls of Alice. The affectionate child embraced
her fondly, straining her to her bosom, and pressing her cheek to
her own.

“How good you are! — how good you are!” she murmured.
“What makes you care for me?”

“I love you so!” said Ellen.

“How can you love me? I am such a little nobody, I
should n't think you would. I am blind, and never can do anything
to pay you for all you do for me.”

“That 's what makes me love you all the more!”

“You make me so happy!” whispered Alice, with an angelic
smile, and a deep sigh of pleasure.

Then Hettie came in very softly, looked for a moment with
wondering eyes upon the strange beauty of the blind girl, and
asked Ellen, in a whisper, if she might kiss her.

“Yes, darling,” said Alice, who overheard her, putting out her
arms.

“Don't worry that poor creature, children!” cried Mrs.
Grayle, entering from the kitchen. “She wants rest. Come
away.”

“When they love me — that does me more good than anything
else,” said Alice. She gave Hettie an eager embrace,
then let her go. “But, if you don't wish them to be here, I will
not keep them.”

“O, I 'm glad to have them kind and attentive to you,” returned
Mrs. Grayle, with moist eyes. “But I think you 'd
better try to get a nap. And you can't sleep while they 're
here.”

“May n't I sit here on the stool, if I 'll be still?” asked Hettie,
in a big whisper.

Her mother said no; so the child, after smoothing one of
Alice's soft curls in her hand very fondly, withdrew, somewhat
reluctantly, to the other room. Ellen put some wood in the stove,
then gave the blind girl a parting kiss, dropped a few cheering
words into her heart, wished her a pleasant nap, and followed her
mother and sister.

It was some time before Alice slept. Strangest fancies visited
her. She thought that angels came and brought her flowers, and
talked to her sweetly, and sang to her, and played on harps, bright
and golden as the sun. But at length slumber stole softly down,
like the shadow of a calm summer twilight; and once more, in
her dreams, the sympathetic Ellen told her how much she loved
her; Hettie lay like a cherub in her arms; and everybody was
good to her.

How sound and blissful her sleep was! She did not know when

Uncle Joe came in to see her, on his way home to dinner. Pale
and still, yet peaceful and happy, she lay with her cheeks half
hidden in curls, her sweet mouth faintly smiling, and her almost
transparent eyelids, fringed with long, dark lashes, sweetly closed.

“The little dearie!” said Uncle Joe, in his whispered growl.
He winked away a tear, and touched her hair lightly with his big
finger. “I 'm glad she 's here. 'Tendin' on her 'll make sister
forgit the shock of last night. Beats all,” he added, with a darkening
of his ruddy face, “ 't I could n't hear nor see nothin' o'
that 'ere dear girl 'at run off so in the storm!”

“Don't you think Clara will come and see us, now she is in
town?” whispered Ellen.

The carpenter shook his head, and patted Ellen's cheek. Before he
could speak, Alice put up her hands, uttered a feeble cry, and awoke.

“You were dreaming,” said Ellen, getting down by her side.

“I saw my brother Martin falling — falling — and I could
not save him,” replied the blind girl. “The dream awoke me.”

Alice was much rested and refreshed after her sleep. She
talked cheerfully with Ellen, with Uncle Joe, and with Benjie,
who presently returned from school. When old Grayle came
home to dinner, he found her sitting up, with an interested group
around her, listening to her story.

The arrival of Cheesy, flushed and out of breath, shortly after,
was an event of some magnitude. At the book-keeper's suggestion,
he had run around to Mr. Wormlett's boarding-house, on
leaving the store, to inform Martin what had happened to Alice,
and where she was.

“He wan't to hum, though,” said he, as the blind girl bent
eagerly forward to hear the news. “He 's gone into the country
some'er's, they said.”

“I knew he went,” cried Alice. “But he was to come right
back. I thought he would be here to-day.”

“I see an old maid at the door,” returned Cheesy. “I did n't
want to see none o' them Wormletts, for I s'pose like 's not they 're
on the look-out for me; so I asked her 'bout Mr. Mer'vale, and
done my arrant to her; and she was tickled enough to hear from
ye, you better believe!”

“It was Miss Tomes — the good Miss Tomes!”

“Yes, that 's the very name. She told me to tell ye Mr. Mer'vale
'd come and see ye jes' 's soon 's he got back, and that she'd
come up herself, right away, after dinner.”

“There, there! that 's what I call pooty handsome!” cried the
benevolent carpenter, chucking Alice under the chin. “That 'll
cheer ye up, to see old friends, — won't it, hey? This reminds me
o' one o' my boyish scrapes, Benjie. I was a dre'ful hard ticket,
when I was a boy,” added Uncle Joe, with relish, shaking his
head sorrowfully. “I got riled at suthin' to home, and took it
into my head to run away, and go to sea. Wal, I fell in with a
company o' sailors, and told my story, and got their sympathy, as
I thought, and was chucklin' a good deal over the glory o' my
revenge, — thinkin' how bad our folks u'd feel about it. — when
they begun to pester me. They told me the dre'fulest stories
about sea-farin' life you ever heard on. I got awfully frightened
and said, Come to think, I guessed I would n't go to sea,
arter all. But they only laughed at me and hectored me
the more; so I changed my tune, told 'em I was only jokin'
— I was f'erce for goin' with 'em, and I know'd two more
boys who 'd jump at the chance to go too, if they 'd let me jest
dodge up to the corner of our street, and speak to 'em. But
that would n't do, neither; they did n't want more 'n one boy,

they said; and they did n't like to le' me go, fear I lotter by the
way, and be too late to sail at dusk. That scar't me more 'n
anything, and sot me to thinkin' what a fool I was, and what a
comf'table home I 'd left; — but I would n't cry; I was too
spunky for that, Benjie. Wal, I 'd gi'n up, and s'posed I 'd
have to go to sea, and make the best on 't, when I looked up and
see father comin' arter me. If you 're half as glad to see your
friends, Alice, as I was to see that 'ere limpin' ol' gentleman, your
skin 'll scurcely hold ye. But jest see what an artful little imp I
was, now, Benjie! I was a desp'ate wicked boy — I 'm sorry to
say. I knowed father 'd take me home; so I spunked up, and
pretended 't I did n't want him to; I 'd got my mind sot on goin'
to sea, and was goin', anyway; and ef he did n't let me go then,
I 'd run away agin, fust chance —”

The carpenter paused, astonished, in the midst of his narrative
Benjie had nudged him, and pointed towards the door. There
stood Aunt Lucia, a sublime picture of an indignant female, whose
rights could n't be trampled upon any longer.

“Mister Joseph Kevill,” she cried, with terrible emphasis,
“are you comin' home to dinner to-day, or not?”

“Yes, yes, mother — right away, this minute,” said the conciliatory
carpenter. “Don't worry — don't fret, mother. I 'll
be right along.”

“Don't worry — don't fret — you 'll be right along!” repeated
Aunt Lucia. “Mister Kevill, this 'ere 's too much for human
natur'! You 've no respect for my feelin's, and never had. Here
my dinner 's been waitin' this half hour an' more —”

“Wal, wal! we 'll go and eat it. Your dinners are so good,
mother, 't they 'll bear to be kept half a day, and beat common
dinners then.”

So saying, Uncle Joe hurried his wife away, receiving a good
portion of her lecture in the street, and the remainder at home,
whilst she was engaged in setting the table for that dinner fabled
to have been waiting half an hour.

At the request of Alice, Cheesy was repeating, as nearly as possible,
all Miss Tomes had said, when Mrs. Grayle, heated and
exhausted with work, announced, in a depressed way, that she
believed her dinner was ready, after a fashion; and he was invited
to sit down with the family.

“I d'n' know 's I oughter,” said he, grinning and twisting his
hat over his knee. “I 'd like to, fust-rate; but I guess I 'd
better go hum.”

“You have nothing in particular to go home for, have you?”
asked Ellen.

“No, nothin' particular — but —”

“Then I guess you 'll stay.”

Ellen put away his hat; and Cheesy, grinning more than ever,
and appearing quite at a loss what to do with his unoccupied
hands, followed the family into the kitchen. Ellen led out Alice,
who, beginning to be anxious again about her father, said she did
not think she could eat anything, but that she would sit at the
table, since her friends wished her to, for company.

The dinner passed. Still Caleb Thorne did not make his
appearance. At length the door-bell rang. Alice hoped then
that he had come. But it was only Miss Tomes, — the good Miss
Tomes, — whom the blind girl was nevertheless rejoiced to meet.
The good book-folder was full of goodness as ever; it flowed over
into the heart of little blind Alice, and filled her with happiness.

“O, yes,” said Miss Tomes, “Martin will come and see you,
the moment he returns; I am sure he will. You don't know how

well he loves you. I left a note for him, telling him all about
it; so that, if he goes to the house while I am away, he will know
where you are to be found. He will come here the first thing.”

Poor Alice felt her bosom warm with hope. But once more
the shadow, that had stood between her and Martin, arose before
her; it approached, and, laying one hand upon her heart, and the
other upon the heart of Miss Tomes, thrust them asunder. At
the same time there were heavy footsteps on the floor.

“My father!” cried Alice, in joyful surprise.

“Who have you here?” demanded Caleb, huskily.

“O, this is Miss Tomes — the good Miss Tomes, father.”

Caleb's dark features grew darker still. Miss Tomes curtseyed,
and smiled, and said. “How do you do, sir?” looking very red
and confused.

“She lives where my brother Martin does,” Alice went on;
“and, don't you think, she says he will come and see me the first
thing, when he gets back from the country.”

Darker still grew the jealous Caleb's features, and redder still
those of the good Miss Tomes. She quite lost her self-possession;
so, after making a few confused remarks about the weather, and
other kindred topics, she took leave of Alice, and beat a precipitate
retreat to the kitchen, where she introduced herself, and
enjoyed a real womanly interchange of thought and feeling — such
as men know not of — with Mrs. Grayle.

Cheesy and the book-keeper had by this time gone to the store;
Miss Tomes took leave soon after; and the children set out for
school. Ellen, who had stayed at home in the morning for the
blind girl's sake, now bade her an affectionate good-by, and left
her in care of her father.

Caleb had dined, he said, where he worked in the forenoon.

Mrs. Grayle doubted him, for his manner was strange, and his
story incoherent; but, perceiving that he could not be prevailed
upon to eat anything, she withdrew to the kitchen.

“You are better — a good deal better, my child,” then said
Caleb, in a low, eager tone of voice.

“O, yes, I am so much better!”

“Quite strong again, my child. I am glad of it! I want
you to walk a little way with me, if you can.”

“Walk — in the street?” asked the child, alarmed.

“The home I told you of — it is quite near here,” said Caleb,
glancing anxiously around him. “If we were there, we would
be free from all trouble. I will never leave you again, my darling.
You shall sit by me when I work, and we will talk together all
day long.”

“And my friends can come and see me?” inquired Alice, her
little heart quivering between hope and fear.

“Yes — your friends,” muttered Caleb, darkly. “Come —
shall we go now?”

“O, but I dread — something!” cried Alice in deep trouble.

“You need not. I am myself now, darling; I am strong. You
know,” Caleb went on in a hoarse whisper, “it will not be right
for us to burden our friends. These good people — they are poor,
and we must not suffer them to do so much for us, that they cannot
well afford to do.”

“I had thought of that,” faltered Alice. “And you are right,
I am sure. But” — she pressed her forehead with both hands —
“I have such a pain here just now — I don't know what I do or
say. The room seems turning round and round. Will you catch
me, if I go to fall?”

“You will not fall, my child. Here is my hand. Ha!” cried

Caleb, — it was well the child could not see the look that lighted
up his glassy eyes, — “you can walk bravely! Here are your
things.”

“And this bundle Miss Tomes brought — shall we take that?
How good she was to think to bring it! She knew that I would
want the things I left behind. But, father,” — the poor child
held her aching forehead in her palms as before, with an expression
of pain, — “is this right? I want to thank all my kind
friends here, and bid them good-by.”

“They are not here now,” whispered Caleb. “We will come
back this evening, perhaps, and thank them. We will see about
that.”

He opened the door in silence, and passed out, supporting blind
Alice with his arm. Along the path in the yard, and through the
gate, and up the snowy street, the fearful father hastened with
his child. Mrs. Grayle, engaged in the kitchen, heard the gate
close, and, thinking somebody had come, hurriedly wiped her
hands, and prepared to throw off her work-apron; but, looking out
into the yard, she saw no one; the door-bell did not ring; and,
entering the sitting-room, she discovered, to her astonishment, that
her strange guests were gone.

“There! it 's just as I was afraid it would be!” she muttered,
fretfully. “No good ever comes of entertaining vagabonds.
They are gone, bag and baggage, without so much as saying,
Thank you; and who knows how much they have carried away
that don't belong to them?”

She looked around; but, unable to make out that anything had
been stolen, and recalling the image of the sweet, frail, blind girl,
her heart began to soften, and resentment gave place to solicitude
for their welfare. She ran out upon the street, to look for them;
but already they had disappeared.

As Caleb had said, his new “home” was not far off. Alice
was conscious of turning one or two corners, and of being hurried
swiftly along a noisy thoroughfare, until her father, drawing her
eagerly into a doorway, seemed to stop and take breath, and look
around him.

“This is the place,” he said, in a quick tone. “We are safe
now, my child. No one has seen us.”

“And what if we should be seen?” asked the bewildered girl.

Caleb muttered some incoherent words about enemies that pursued
him, which made the poor child tremble more and more; and,
opening the door without ringing, led her into a hollow-sounding
hall. Then commenced a tedious ascent of dreary flights of stairs,
the labor of which made Alice so sick and dizzy, that more than
once she was obliged to sit down and rest. Her father tried
to bear her in his arms; but, now that the excitement of flight
was over, he was scarce stronger than she. At length they
reached a garret-room, which he said was to be her room; and
the sick child, longing so much for repose, heaved a deep sigh
of relief. But disappointment met her; the door was locked.

“Never mind; keep up courage,” said Caleb. “We will go
into the work-room; it is down only one flight.”

He tried the latch of the room below, and some one opened it
from within. A stifling atmosphere swept over the blind girl's
delicate senses — an atmosphere of various and indescribable
qualities, the most marked of which appeared to be the smell of
varnish and tobacco-smoke.

“Ho, ho!” said a cracked voice, close to the child's face, —
and at the same time the odor of a rummy breath predominated,
— “you 've brought your little waif, Mr. Thorne. How do you
do, my chuck?”

A hot hand touched Alice's cold cheek, not unkindly; but
Caleb snatched it away, and led her to a seat in the midst of varnish-pots,
artists' materials, and pictures of apparently every age,
kind and color, which filled up and littered the little old smoky
room.

“Well, that 's cool! that 's frigid! that smacks of the polar
regions, Mr. Thorne,” said the cracked voice, with good-humored
sarcasm; and, had not Alice been blind, she might have seen a
grim, checkered, one-eyed visage leering upon her father.
“You 're quite stiff with your friends to-day. Well, sir, I don't
blame you; I should be, if I was the father of such a little
beauty.”

“She is faint,” replied Caleb, in a downcast, evasive manner.
“I was afraid you would be rough with her.”

“Rough! Bob Synders rough! Bless you, I was famous
for the delicacy of my manners, in my better days. I know
what 's due to the sex — especially to such a tender flower as this.
Faint, is she? Just let her taste a drop —”

Mr. Synders brought something from a closet, which he offered
to give the child. But Caleb, in a sudden access of fury, dashed
it from his hand upon the floor; and Alice heard a ring and
jingle, as of shattered glass.

“I would kill her with my own hand, before she should drink
it!” articulated the excited man.

Mr. Synders regarded the incident as a good joke. He doubled
up with laughter. He rubbed his red nose with merriment.
His one eye — an inflamed one, by the way — twinkled with
mirth.

“What a sentiment! from the lips, too, of the virtuous and
temperate Mr. Thorne!” he exclaimed, as soon as he could speak.
“It is too good! — it is exquisite!”

Appearing to take no notice of his friend's comments, Caleb
inquired for the key to Alice's room; and Mr. Synders, recovering
from another fit of laughter, replied that Peliqué probably
had it in his pocket, down stairs. Thereupon Caleb set out to go
down after it, charging Alice to sit still till his return, and warning
the merry proprietor of the checkered face to beware of trying
any more of his experiments for the cure of faintness.

“A jolly cove he is,” observed Mr. Synders, pleasantly.
“We 're the best friends in the world. But he 's an odd stick.
So you are his little blind daughter, hey? Well, I can sympathize
with you,” he added, quite tenderly. “I 've only one eye,
myself.”

A chord was touched in the bosom of Alice, and she listened
with interest.

“O, yes,” Mr. Synders went on, “I lost my left peeper fifteen
years ago. But it 's different from yours. One would n't guess
you were blind, to look into your pretty blue eyes; while mine
give me such an ugly, vicious, sinister, satanic, old hag's appearance,
that it 's no comfort to look in the glass. I was a pretty
good-looking man, though, once. Well, I can say it myself now
— I was considered handsome. There was a young woman going
to marry me for my beauty, — would you believe? But I was a
wild boy; had the misfortune to inherit a fortune — a small one,
by the way; became too reckless to please the devil himself, —
so he led me into temptation, and got me into a fight, which I
came out of with only one eye. Then my beauty was ruined;
then the ambitious young woman would n't have me; then I got
more desperate than ever, and took hard to drink; then my fortune
went like the dew; then — well, never mind! here I am, a
one-eyed, blotched,” — Mr. Synders glanced at a fragmentary

mirror over the mantelpiece, and gave an inventory of his charms,
— “scowling, inflamed, broken-toothed, broken-headed, broken-backed,
broken-hearted, jolly son of the sire of sinners — at your
service.”

Mr. Synders spoke in a gay tone of artificial humor, but beneath
that false surface swept a black stream of sorrow and tragedy,
which made poor Alice shudder.

“Luckily, I learned to paint before that devil's bait of a fortune
tempted me. People said I would make a great artist; and
I think I had genius; for painting came natural to me, and I
used to delight in it, before I forsook my art to go after strange
gods. Well, the talent I cultivated in my better days serves me
now. I work for that parchment-faced, sharp-eyed, sharp-nosed,
queer, quick, quirkish, querulous, little, old, withered wandering
Jew of a Frenchman, Moshure Peliqué. He 's a restorer of old
paintings, and a dealer in pictures in general; but his principal
business lies in a simple, honest, beautiful and catholic trick he
has of smoking up trashy modern paintings to make 'em look
ancient, and pass for valuable works of the old masters. A common
picture, of the right tone to suit his purpose, such as he gets
at auction for fifteen dollars, more or less, we make worth three,
four, five, ten, twenty times as much, with the use of a little
smoke, varnish, and perhaps a touch and a shade here and there
of the most sallow and sombre coloring that can be produced.
But this don't interest you much. Tell me something about yourself,
— I 've given you my story.”

“What shall I tell you?”

“O, to begin with, let me hear what you did, what happened
to you, and so forth, when your father was in the House of Correction.”

“The House of Correction?” repeated Alice, wondering.

“Bless you, don't you know? I do, as easy as the boy knew
his father,” replied the facetious Mr. Synders. “It 's a rather
pleasant establishment, to which persons of eccentric habits are
sometimes recommended, for a change of scene, you know.”

“Father — has he been there?” eagerly asked the child.

“To be sure. He enjoyed a delightful three-months' residence
in that benevolent institution, I believe.”

“Tell me about it. I don't understand. You frighten me.
It — it — is n't a jail, is it? Was he obliged to stay there?”

“It 's my impression that was the case — or something near
it. But you need n't feel bad about it,” observed Mr. Synders,
as Alice began to weep. “Some very respectable people go there.
In fact, I 've been there myself. It was there I got acquainted
with your virtuous parent — a valuable connection to him, for I
used my influence to get him this place, when we came out. He
is a very good painter, besides being quite ingenious; so there is
a chance of his making himself very useful to this swearing, swaggering,
swindling, sweet, Jew-Frenchman of a Moshure Peliqué.”

“Why did they put him there — in the House of Correction?”

“It was a false charge, I am confident, my dear; but, to tell
you just the plain truth, he was taken before the police court, and
sentenced as a common drunkard. Come, don't feel bad! I 'm
sorry I told you. I did n't know you 'd cry so. Never mind;
it 's all over with now. Your father is out; he 's got a good
business, and enjoys my friendship, — which is saying a good
deal, you know,” said Mr. Synders, coaxingly.

Alice heard her father's step, and hastened to dry her tears.
When Caleb entered, he found his fellow-artist engaged in putting
a fresh head of hair on a faded Virgin, and whistling as innocently
as if he had not spoken to the blind girl during his absence.