never go back to school at all."

"Not go back; when I'm captain! why, you and father both said that if I
got to be that, I should not stop till I was seventeen--and now I'm only
fifteen and a half. O, mother, you don't mean it! Father couldn't break
his word! I may go back!"

Mrs. Boyd shook her head sadly, and then explained as briefly and calmly
as she could the heavy blow which had fallen upon the father, and,
indeed, upon the whole family. Mr. Boyd had long been troubled with his
eyes, about as serious a trouble as could have befallen a man in his
profession--an accountant--as they call it in Scotland. Lately he had
made some serious blunders in his arithmetic, and his eyesight was
so weak that his wife persuaded him to consult a first-rate Edinburgh
oculist, whose opinion, given only yesterday, after many days of anxious
suspense, was that in a few months he would become incurably blind.

"Blind, poor father blind!" Donald put his hand before his own eyes. He
was too big a boy to cry, or at any rate, to be seen crying, but it
was with a choking voice that he spoke next: "I'll be his eyes; I'm old
enough."

"Yes; in many ways you are, my son," said Mrs. Boyd, who had had a day
and a night to face her sorrow, and knew she must do so calmly. "But you
are not old enough to manage the business; your father will require
to take a partner immediately, which will reduce our income one-half.
Therefore we cannot possibly afford to send you to school again. The
little ones must go, they are not nearly educated yet, but you are. You
will have to face the world and earn your own living, as soon as ever
you can. My poor boy!"

"Don't call me poor, mother. I've got you and father and the rest. And,
as you say, I've had a good education so far. And I'm fifteen and a
half, no, fifteen and three-quarters--almost a man. I'm not afraid."

"Nor I," said his mother, who had waited a full minute before Donald
could find voice to say all this, and it was at last stammered out
awkwardly and at random. "No; I am not afraid because my boy has to
earn his bread; I had earned mine for years as a governess when father
married me. I began work before I was sixteen. My son will have to do
the same, that is all."

That day the mother and son spoke no more together. It was as much
as they could do to bear their trouble, without talking about it, and
besides, Donald was not a boy to "make a fuss" over things. He could
meet sorrow when it ca