when a great crash was heard, and a wild cry, and Robin was found upon the floor screaming with agony, while near him lay a broken cup, which had contained a quantity of red pepper, which the housemaid had left upon the sideboard until ready to replenish the caster. Lucy was crying, too, with pain, for the fiery powder was in her eyes, also. But she had not received as much as Robin, who from that hour, never again saw the light of day.
There were weeks of fearful suffering when the little hands were tied to keep them from the eyes which the poor baby, who was only two years and a half old, said, "Bite Robin so bad," and which, when at last the pain had ceased, and the inflammation subsided, were found to be hopelessly blind.
"Blind! blind! Oh, Robin, I wish I was dead!" Lucy had exclaimed, when they told her the sad news, and with a bitter cry she threw herself beside her brother on his little bed and sobbed piteously. "Oh, Robbie, Robbie, you must not be blind! Can't you see me just a little? Try, Robbie. You must see me; you must."
Slowly the lids unclosed, and the sightless eyes turned upward toward the white face above them, and then Lucy saw there was no hope; the beautiful blue she had so envied in her wicked moods, was burned out, leaving only a blood-shot, whitish mass which would never again in this world see her or any other object.
"No, shister," the little boy said, "I tan't see 'oo now. It 'marts some yet, but bime by I see 'oo. Don't ty;" and the little hand was raised and groped to find the bowed head of the girl weeping in such agony beside him.
"What for 'oo ty so? I see 'oo bime by," he persisted, as Lucy made no reply, but wept on until her strength was exhausted and she was taken from the room in a state of unconsciousness, which resulted in a low nervous fever, from which she did not recover until Robbie was as well as he ever would be, and his voice was heard again through the house in baby laughter, for he had not yet learned what it was to be blind and helpless.
Lucy had said, when questioned with regard to the accident, that she had climbed up in a chair to get some sugar for herself and Robin from the bowl on the shelf of the sideboard, that she saw the cup of pepper and took it up to see what it was, and let it drop from her hand, directly into the face of Robin, who was looking up at her. Thus she was answerable for his blindness, and she grew suddenly old beyond her years, and devoted herself to her brother, with a solicitude and care marvelous in one so young, for she was not yet six years old.
"I must be his eyes always as long as I live," she said, and she seldom left his side or allowed another to care for him in the least.
He slept in a little cot near hers. She undressed him at night, and dressed him in the morning and gave him his breakfast, always selecting the daintiest bits for him and giving him the larger share of everything. Together they wandered in the park, she leading him by the hand and telling him where they were, or carrying him in her arms, when the way was rough, and then, when she put him down, always kissing him tenderly, while on her face there was a look of sadness pitiful to see in one so young.
When she was seven years old, and Robin four, her mother, who had been an invalid, ever since the birth of Geraldine, died, and that made Lucy's burden still heavier to bear. They told her, her mother would not live till night, and with a look on her face, such as a martyr might wear when going to the stake, Lucy put Robin from her, and going to her mother's room, asked to be left alone with her.
"There is something I must tell her. I cannot let her die until I do," she said, and so the watchers went out and left the mother and child together.
What Lucy had to tell, no one knew; but when at the going down of the sun, the mother was dying, Lucy's head was upon her neck, and so long as life remained, the pale hand smoothed the dark tresses of the sobbing girl, and the white lips whispered, softly:
"God bless my little Lucy, He knows it all. He can forgive all. Try to be happy, and never forsake poor Robbie."
"Never, mother, never," was Lucy's reply, and she kept the vow to the letter, becoming mother, sister, nurse, and teacher all in one, to the little blind Robin, who loved her in return with all the intensity of his nature.
It was the wish of Mr. Grey, that Lucy should be sent to school with the children of her age, but she objected strongly, as it would take her so much from Robin; so, a governess was employed in the house and whatever Lucy learned, she repeated to her brother, who drank in her lessons so eagerly, that he soon became her equal in everything except the power to read and write. Particularly was he interested in the countries of Europe, which he hoped to visit some day, in company with his sister.
"Not that I can ever see them," he said, "but I shall know just how they look, because you will describe them so vividly, and I can hear the dash of the sea at Naples, and feel the old pavements in Pompeii, and the hot lava of Vesuvius. And, oh, perhaps we will go to the Holy Land, and stand just where Christ once stood, and you will see the hills He looked upon, and the spot on which He suffered. And I shall be so glad and somehow feel nearer to Him. And, oh, if He could be there as He was once—a man, you know—I'd cry to Him louder than ever old Bartimeus did, and tell Him I was a little blind boy from America, but that I loved Him, and wanted Him to make me see. And He would, I know."
Such were the dreams of the enthusiastic boy, but they were never to be realized. Always delicate as a child, he grew more and more so as he became older, so that at last all mental labor was put aside, and when he was sixteen, and Lucy nineteen, they took him to St. Augustine, where he could hear the moan of the sea and fancy it was the Mediterranean in far-off Italy. Lucy was of course with him, and made him see everything with her eyes, and took him to the old fort and led him upon the sea wall and through the narrow streets and out beneath the orange trees, where he liked best to sit and feel the soft, warm air upon his face and inhale the sweet perfume of the southern flowers.
But all this did not give him strength. On the contrary, the hectic flush on his cheek deepened daily, his hands grew thinner and paler, and the eyelids seemed to droop more heavily over the sightless eyes. Robin was going to die, and he knew it, and talked of it freely with his sister, and of Heaven, where Christ would make him whole.
"It will be such joy to see," he said to her one night when they sat together by the window of his room, with the silvery moonlight falling on his beautiful face and making it like the face of an angel. "Such joy to see again, and the very first one I shall look at after Christ and mother, will be old blind Bartimeus, who sat by the roadside and begged. I have not had to do that, and my life has been very, very happy, for you have been my eyes, and made me see everything. You know I have a faint recollection of the grass, and the flowers, and the trees in the park, and that has helped me so much; and I have you in my mind, too, and you are so lovely I know, for I have heard people talk of your sweet face and beautiful eyes; starry eyes I have heard them called."
"Oh, Robbie, Robbie, don't!" came like cry of pain from Lucy's quivering lips. But Robin did not heed her, and went on:
"Starry eyes—that's just what they are, I think; and I can imagine how lovingly they look at me, and how pityingly, too. There is always something so sad in your voice when you speak to me, and I say to myself, 'That's how Lucy's eyes look at me, just as her voice sounds when it says brother Robbie.' I shall know you in heaven, the moment you come, and I shall be waiting for you, and when I see your eyes I shall say, 'That is sister Lucy, come at last!' Oh, it will be such joy!—no night, no blindness, no pain, and you with me again as you have been here, only there, I shall be the guide, and lead you through the green pastures beside the still waters, where never-fading flowers are blooming sweeter than the orange blossoms near our window."
Lucy was sobbing hysterically, with her head in his lap, while he smoothed the dark braids of her hair, and tried to comfort her by asking if she ought not to be glad that he was going where there was no more night
