ed; a great surgeon was called
in, and the two shook their heads together in very portentous style.
It was a case of caries, they said, and Austin mustn't hunt sheep any
more. Soon he had to lie upon the sofa for several hours a day, and
what made Aunt Charlotte more anxious than anything else was that he
didn't seem to mind lying on the sofa, as he would have done if he had
felt strong and well; on the contrary, he grew thin and listless, and
instead of always jumping up and trying to evade the doctor's orders,
appeared quite content to lie there, quiet and resigned, from one
week's end to another. That, thought shrewd Aunt Charlotte, betokened
mischief. Another consultation followed, and then a very terrible
sentence was pronounced. It was necessary, in order to save his life,
that Austin should lose his leg.

What does a boy generally feel under such circumstances? What would
you and I feel? Austin's first impulse was to burst into a passionate
fit of weeping, and he yielded to it unreservedly. But, the fit once
past, he smiled brilliantly through his tears. True, he would never
again be able to enjoy those glorious ramps up hill and down dale that
up till then had sent the warm life coursing through his veins. Never
more would he go scorching along the level roads against the wind on
his cherished bicycle. The open-air athletic days of stress and effort
were gone, never to return. But there might be compensations; who
could tell? Happiness, all said and done, need not depend upon a
shin-bone more or less. He might lose a leg, but legs were, after all,
a mere concomitant to life--life did not consist in legs. There would
still be something left to live for, and who could tell whether that
something might not be infinitely grander and nobler and more
satisfying than even the rapture of flying ten miles an hour on his
wheel, or chevying a flock of agitated sheep from one pasture to
another?

Where this sudden inspiration came from, he then had no idea; but come
it did, in the very nick of time, and helped him to dry his tears. The
day of destiny also came, and his courage was put to the test. He knew
well enough, of course, that of the operation he would feel nothing.
But the sight of the hard, white, narrow pallet on which he had to
lie, the cold glint of the remorseless instruments, the neatly folded
packages of lint and cotton-wool, and the faint, horrible smell of
chloroform turned him rather sick for a minute. T