“Please let me put my hand on your face, Phyllie, so if I kin git you to tell the truth to me, I kin feel if you cry,” he said as he reached up and put one little hand that is getting white and weak against my cheek.  I forced my eyes to drink up the tears that they had let get as far as my lashes, and put my arm under his head and cuddled him against my shoulder, my shoulder that has had to learn to cuddle since he got hurt.

“Is I going to be blind, Phyllie, and kin they be a blind doctor, if I am?” he asked, with his baby mouth set with the Byrd family expression, the first time I had ever seen it on his face.

“Oh, no, Lovelace Peyton, No!” I exclaimed, hugging him up closer.  “A great big doctor is coming on the cars in just a few days to make you well.”

“But kin a doctor be a blind man, Phyllie,” he asked again, with his mouth still set.

“Yes, Lovelace Peyton, if you are the blind man,” I answered as positively as I felt.  It is true for if he is blind, then there will be a blind doctor in the world and a famous one at that.

“Will you always go with me to tell me how the folks and sores and blood and things look, Phyllie, so I kin give the right medicine?” he asked, curling his fingers around mine in a still tighter grasp.

“Yes, I will, indeed I will,” I answered, with words that pushed their way from my heart.

And just then Tony came in with Pink, in such a dejected manner that I hardly knew them.  I knew from their looks and my own feelings that it was the quadratics we were going to have on examination Tuesday, and my deepest sympathy went out to them.

“Say, Dr. Snakes,” said Tony solemnly, as he sat down almost upon the toad on the bed by Lovey, “I’ve brought Pink, the Rosebud, to be operated on at my expense entirely.  I have been trying to put algebra into his head for a solid hour, and now I want it split open so I can just chuck the book in whole to save my time.  Shall I go get the axe?”

And Lovelace Peyton laughed just as much at Tony as the rest of us did, though the hen got frightened and began to squawk so that both Tony and Pink had to work to tie her down tighter.  They didn’t need me right then, so I slipped out and went home through the garden.

Oh, that doctor must come down here quick to see about those valuable eyes!  I don’t dare think what I will do if the article about Father fails, but I feel sure it won’t.  Still my heart beats as if it couldn’t get all the blood it needs—­and that reminds me that physiology comes on Wednesday.  I ought to study, but I can’t.

And another thing that is worrying me is, that I didn’t go to see what Mrs. Satterwhite wanted when she sent for me, and it might be that I could have spent some money if I had found out what she would like to have.  I have been so busy and so scared that I haven’t been down to the Public Square this week, and now I will have to go and shop all morning if I am to keep up the amount of the monthly bills.