gs seemed to get right. But the day he carried Nanny the
first dandelions, and she felt of them, instead of looking at them, as
she said, with such pathetic patience in her little face, 'I don't see
'em; but I know they're pretty, and I like 'em lots,' Jack felt as if
the blithe spring sunshine was all spoiled; and when he tried to cheer
himself up with a good whistle, his lips trembled so they wouldn't
pucker.

'The poor dear's eyes could be cured, I ain't a doubt; but it would take
a sight of money, and who's agoing to pay it?' said Mrs. Quinn,
scrubbing away at her tub.

'How much money?' asked Jack.

'A hundred dollars, I dare say. Dr. Wilkinson's cook told me once that
he done something to a lady's eyes, and asked a thousand dollars for
it.'

Jack sighed a long, hopeless sigh, and went away to fill the
water-pails; but he remembered the doctor's name, and began to wonder
how many years it would take to earn a hundred dollars.

Nanny was very patient; but, by and by, Mrs. Quinn began to talk about
sending her to some almshouse, for she was too poor to be burdened with
a helpless child. The fear of this nearly broke Jack's heart; and he
went about with such an anxious face that it was a mercy Nanny did not
see it. Jack was only twelve, but he had a hard load to carry just then;
for the thought of his little friend, doomed to lifelong darkness for
want of a little money, tempted him to steal more than once, and gave
him the first fierce, bitter feeling against those better off than he.
When he carried nice dinners to the great houses and saw the plenty that
prevailed there, he couldn't help feeling that it wasn't fair for some
to have so much, and others so little. When he saw pretty children
playing in the park, or driving with their mothers, so gay, so well
cared for, so tenderly loved, the poor boy's eyes would fill to think of
poor little Nanny, with no friend in the world but himself, and he so
powerless to help her.

When he one day mustered courage to ring at the great doctor's bell,
begging to see him a minute, and the servant answered, gruffly, as he
shut the door, 'Go along! he can't be bothered with the like of you!'
Jack clenched his hands hard as he went down the steps, and said to
himself, with a most unboyish tone, 'I'll get the money somehow, and
_make_ him let me in!'

He did get it, and in a most unexpected way; but he never forgot the
desperate feeling that came to him that day, and all his