“Read the sickest part again, Phyllie, and then turn and read the medicine for it,” he had just demanded when she fled.

And for the rest of the afternoon I sat by him and went through all the different stages of smallpox until, feeling each one acutely as I did, it is a wonder I was not pock-marked.  When he fell asleep at last he was holding fast to one of my hands for fear I would get away with the precious book.

When I could slip his fingers from mine, I tried to steal tiptoe through the hall so as not to wake Roxanne, who was lying asleep, I hoped, on the sofa in the hall, but she opened her great, troubled, dark eyes and saw me before I got to the door.

“Oh, Phyllis,” she said and held out her arms to me.  Somehow it seems to me I have learned very quickly how to take a person I love in my arms without awkwardness—­that is for a girl who never had anybody to take before—­and I sat down and snuggled Roxanne in a manner comfortable to us both.  “Do you think it is possible that Lovey is going to be—­be blind?” she asked me in a small voice that could hardly dare utter the horrible words.

“I came in such a hurry when Mr. Douglass Byrd called me that I didn’t quite understand what Dr. Hughes said or found,” I answered.

“When he took the bandages off, Lovey didn’t seem to see at all, but the lids are still so swollen that he is not sure they are closed.  I don’t believe he knows what to do, Phyllis, and that is what scares me.  But is there any great thing a blind man can do except be a musician?  Lovey can’t sing much.”

I verily believe that Roxanne Byrd would have gone on and planned some kind of a career of blind genius for Lovelace Peyton while waiting to see if he was to lose his eyes, if the Idol hadn’t come into the hall at that moment.

He moved Roxanne over and sat down between us and began to talk seriously to us, like I was a valued member of the Byrd family.

“I have just had a long talk with Dr. Hughes, and he says that Lovelace Peyton will have to have a specialist examine his eyes and direct the treatment, if the sight is to be saved.  We will have to think up a plan to get a great doctor from Cincinnati down to Byrdsville, Tennessee.”

“But it will cost so much and where—?” Roxanne stopped quickly for fear of hurting the Idol’s feelings and not from my presence.  One of the great things about the Byrds is that they can forget riches in such a way as not even to know or realize that they haven’t them.

“We’ll get it,” answered the Idol with his heroic look, the like of which I do not believe a man ever owned before.  “Things are going to go straight, now that Miss Phyllis has got the bugger all happy with the medical course again.  What would all of us do without her?” He stood up to light his pipe and his fingers trembled.