ay know it was a very sad day for the poor boy. When he found
himself in the "awful chair," his heart failed him and he sprang out of
it.

"No, no, he never could have his eyes cut with little daggers. Even if
they did give him ether, he couldn't; Papa must take him right home
again. It was of no use!"

It was pitiful to see Preston's struggles with himself, and the still
greater struggles of the father, who tried to hide his feelings for his
boy's sake.

"Wait till to-morrow," said Preston; "just wait, and I _will_!"

So they waited.

All the afternoon Preston's heart kept sinking down, down, like a
plummet let into the sea, and his father's heart sank with it, for a
child cannot feel a sorrow that does not touch his parent too.

But it chanced in the night, as Preston lay awake, that he fell to
thinking how his father loved him.

"He would do anything in this world for me. He'd take his eyes right out
and give them to me if he could."

And then Preston wondered if it were really true that God loved him
better yet?

Oh, yes, loved him so that he would never, never let anything really bad
happen to his little boy.

"So this isn't really bad," thought he, clapping his hands softly under
the coverlet; "it seems awful, but it isn't. God sent it, and I can bear
it--yes, for his sake and father's sake!"

"Surely what He wills is best,
Happy in His will I rest,"

repeated Preston, and went quietly to sleep "like closing flowers at
night."

Dr. Gray was joyfully surprised at his bright looks next morning.

"Smile up your face, Dr. Papa," said he, playfully. This was what Flaxie
used to say in her baby days, when they didn't call her Flaxie Frizzle,
but Pinky Pearly. "Smile up your face, Dr. Papa, and see what Preston
Gray can do."

The horror was over then for Dr. Gray; his son was going to behave like
a man.

He did not know when he saw Preston take his seat so calmly in that
"awful chair," that he was strong because he felt God's arms about him.

But when Preston left that chair, the trouble was not all over. He could
not bear any light yet, so he had to go home a few days afterwards with
a bandage over his eyes, and stay in a dark room for many weeks.

But didn't they make the room pleasant for him? Didn't they treat him
like a prince? Didn't Bert Abbott and the other boys go up and down on
that stair-carpet till they nearly wore it out?

Of course Julia was good to the young prisoner; you