son was born. He had been absent for a week or more,
and with the exception of the time when he first knew he had a son
he did not remember of having experienced a moment of greater
happiness than that in which he reached his home where dwelt his
boy--his pride--his idol. Louis was not in the room, and on the
mother's face there was an expression of sadness, which at once
awakened the father's fears lest something had befallen his child.

"Where is Louis?" he asked. "Has anything happened to him that you
look so pale?"

"Louis is well," answered Matty, and then, unable longer to control
her feelings, she burst into tears, while the doctor looked on in
amazement, wondering if all women were as nervous and foolish as the
two it had been his fortune to marry.

"Oh, husband," she cried, feeling sure of his sympathy, and thinking
it better to tell the truth at once; "has it never occurred to you
that Louis was not like other children?"

"Of course it has," he answered quickly. "He is a thousand times
brighter than any child I have ever known."

"'Tisn't that, 'tisn't that," said Matty. "He'll never walk--he's
lame--deformed!"

"What do you mean?" thundered the doctor, reeling for an instant
like a drunken man; then, recovering his composure, he listened
while Matty told him what she meant.

At that moment Maude drew Louis into the room, and, taking the child
in his arms, the doctor examined him for himself, wondering he had
never observed before how small and seemingly destitute of life were
his lower limbs. The bunch upon the back, though slight as yet, was
really there, and Matty, when questioned, said it had been there for
weeks, but she did not tell of it, for she hoped it would go away.

"It will stay until his dying day," he muttered, as he ordered Maude
to take the child away. "Louis deformed! Louis a cripple! What have
I done that I should be thus sorely punished?" he exclaimed, when he
was alone with his wife; and then, as he dared not blame the
Almighty, he charged it to her, until at last his thoughts took
another channel. Maude had dropped him--he knew she had, and Matty
was to blame for letting her handle him so much, when she knew 'twas
a maxim of his that children should not take care of children.

He had forgotten the time when his worn-out wife had asked him to
hire a nurse girl for Louis, and he had answered that "Maude was
large enough for that." On some points his memory was treacherous,
and f