to come he might teach it to the boy, and be
able to translate for his benefit appropriate pieces of literature. He
visited every famous institute for the blind at home and abroad, and
made an exhaustive study of their systems. He searched for a girl of
intelligence and charm, and sent her to be trained in readiness to
undertake the boy's education; he schooled himself to be a playmate and
companion; he denied himself every luxury, so that the boy's future
might be assured. As Francis the man, he ceased to exist; he lived on
only as Francis the father.

During the first three years of his life the young Francis remained
blissfully unconscious of his infirmity. A strong, healthy child
surrounded by the tenderest of care, the sun of his happiness never set.
His little feet raced up and down; his sweet, shrill voice chanted
merry strains; his small, strong hands seemed gifted with sight as well
as touch, so surely did they guide him to and fro. Nature, having
withheld the greatest gift, had remorsefully essayed compensation in the
shape of a finer touch, a finer hearing. The blind child was the
sunshine of the home; but the father knew that the hour must dawn when
that sunshine would be clouded. He held himself in readiness for that
hour, training himself as an athlete trains for a race.

He would need courage: therefore it behoved him to be brave now, to
harden himself against the ills of life, and cultivate a resolute
composure. All the influences which had tended to keep him soft must be
thrown aside as weights which would hinder the race. He must be wise,
therefore it behoved him to think, and to train his mind. A light
reason, a light excuse, would no longer be sufficient; he must learn to
judge and to reflect. He must be tender; and to be tender it was
necessary to bury self, and to put other interests before his own. More
weights had to be thrown aside. And he must be patient! Hitherto he
had considered patience a feeble, almost unmanly, virtue; but he
perceived that it would be needed, and must be cultivated with the rest.

Mrs Manning confided in her neighbours that Francis had never been the
same since the discovery of Baby's blindness. He never complained, she
said. Oh, no; and he was most kind--gave no trouble in the house,
_but_--Then she sighed, and the neighbours sympathised, and prophesied
that he would "come round." In truth the good, commonplace woman was
ill at ease in the rarefied atm