My father’s heart almost broke.  I can see him now crying and sobbing like a child.  He would not believe it.  He turned from one to the other, crying out: 

“It cannot be true!  I will not believe it!  She is so young and so beautiful—­it cannot be true!”

“It is most unfortunately true,” said the head physician, sorrowfully.  “The poor lady will dance and walk no more.”

“Who is to tell her?” cried my father.  “I dare not.”

“It will be far better that she should not know—­a hundred times better.  Let her live as long as she can in ignorance of her fate; she will be more cheerful and in reality far better than if she knew the truth; it would hang over her like a funeral pall; the stronger her nerve and spirit the better for her.  She would regain neither, knowing this.”

“But in time—­with care—­she is so young.  Perhaps there may be a chance.”

“I tell you plainly,” said the doctor, “that most unfortunately there is none—­there is not the faintest,” and, he added, solemnly, “may Heaven lighten your afflictions to you!”

They went away, and my father drew me to his arms.

“Laura,” he said, “you must help me all your life to take care of mamma.”

“I will, indeed,” I cried.  “I ask nothing better from Heaven than to give my life to her—­my beautiful mother.”

And then he told me that she would never walk again—­that her flying feet were to rest forever more—­that in her presence I must always be quite bright and cheerful, and never say one word of what I knew.

No more difficult task could have been laid on the heart of a child.  I did it.  No matter what I suffered, I always went into her room with a smile and bright, cheerful words.

So the long years passed; my beautiful mother grew better and happier and stronger—­little dreaming that she was never to walk out in the meads and grounds again.  She was always talking about them and saying where she should go and what she should do when she grew well.

Roses bloomed, lilies lived and died, the birds enjoyed their happy summer, then flew over the sea to warmer climes; summer dew and summer rain fell, the dead leaves were whirled in the autumn winds, and still my mother lay helpless.  If this one year seemed so long, what would a lifetime be?

As some of her strength returned it seemed to me that mother grew more and more charming.  She laughed and enjoyed all our care of her, and when the wonderful chair came from London, in which she could go round the garden, and could be wheeled from one room to another, she was as delighted as a child.

“Still,” she said to my father, “it seems to me a pity almost, Roland, to have sent to London for this.  I shall surely be able to walk soon.”

He turned away from her with tears in his eyes.

A month or two afterward we were both sitting with her, and she said, quite suddenly: