labor.

Nor did Amy share in her father's hope, though she loved art for his
sake, and she answered, with conviction:--

"Never such an one as you are, father dear."

But all this while the daughter's eyes had been studying her mother's
face, with the keen penetration of sympathy, and the whispered advice:--

"Be especially gentle with Hallam to-night, my child," but confirmed the
answer she had already found in that careworn countenance.

Yet Hallam showed no need of consolation as he sturdily stumped across
the room and exclaimed, cheerfully enough:--

"Fetch on the provender, Goodsoul. We're all as hungry as bears. What's
for us?"

"What should be? save the best rasher of bacon ever blessed eyesight,
with tea-biscuits galore. For second course--My! but that pullet was a
tender bird, so she was. An' them east-lot petaties would fain melt in
your mouth, they're so hot-foot to be ate."

"The pullet? Not the little brown one you have cared for yourself,
Cleena?"

"What for no? Eat your victuals askin' no questions, for that's aye bad
for the appetite."

Both Amy and Cleena knew, without words, that this last city trip had
been a failure, like so many that had preceded it. Once more had the too
sanguine father dragged his crippled son to undergo a fresh examination
of his well-formed though useless limbs; and once more had an adverse
verdict been rendered.

This time the authority was of the highest. A European specialist, whose
name was known and reverenced upon two continents, had come to New York
and had been consulted. Interested more than common by the boy's fair
face and the sweet womanliness of the mother, the surgeon had given
extra attention to Hallam, and his decision had been as reluctantly
reached as it was final.

"Only a miracle will ever enable him to walk. Yet a miracle may occur,
for we live in an age of them, and nothing seems impossible to science.
However, in all mortal probability, he is as one dead below his knees.
My lad, take your medicine bravely and be a man in spite of it all. Use
your brain, thanking God for it, and let the rest go."

"That's an easy thing for you to say, but it is I who have to bear it!"
burst forth the unhappy boy, and was at once ashamed of his rude speech,
even if it in no wise offended the sympathetic physician.

The return journey had been a sad and silent one, though Hallam had
roused at its end with the sort of bravado that Amy had seen, and which
dec