quick!"

"They are doing everything they can for him. Why, don't, poor Aunt
Cynthia!"

"His eyes, they said--"

"I hope he will come out all right. Don't, dear Aunt Cynthia." The
young man put his arm around his aunt and spoke soothingly, blushing
like a girl before this sudden revelation of an under-stratum of
delicacy in a woman's heart.

Cynthia lost control of herself completely; or, rather, the true
self of her rose uppermost, shattering the surface ice of her
reserve. "Oh," she said--"oh, if he--if he is--blind, if he
is--I--I--will lead him everywhere all the rest of his life; I will,
Robert."

"Of course you will, dear Aunt Cynthia," replied Robert, soothingly.

Suddenly Cynthia's face took on a new expression. She looked at
Robert, deadly pale, and her jaw dropped. "He will not--die," she
said, with stiff lips. "It is not as bad as that?"

"Oh no, no; I am sure he will not," Robert cried, wonderingly and
pityingly. "Don't, Aunt Cynthia."

"If he dies," she said--"if he dies--and he has loved me all this
time, and I have never done anything for him--I cannot bear it; I
will not bear it; I will not, Robert!"

"Oh, he isn't going to die, Aunt Cynthia."

"I want to go to him," she said. "I _will_ go to him."

Robert looked helplessly from her to Fanny. "I am afraid you can't
just now, Aunt Cynthia," he replied.

Fanny came resolutely to his assistance. "Of course you can't, Miss
Lennox," she said. "The doctors won't let you see him now. You would
do him more harm than good. You don't want to do him harm!"

"No, I don't want to do him harm," returned Cynthia, in a wailing,
hysterical voice. She threw herself down upon a sofa and began
sobbing like a child, with her face hidden.

A young doctor entered and stood looking at her.

Robert turned to him. "It is my aunt, and she is agitated over Mr.
Risley's accident," he said, coloring a little.

Instantly the young physician's face lost its expression of
astonishment and assumed the soothing gloss of his profession. "Oh,
my dear Miss Lennox," he said, "there is no cause for agitation, I
assure you. Everything is being done for Mr. Risley."

"Will he be blind?" gasped Cynthia, with a great vehemence of woe,
which seemed to gainsay the fact of her years. It seemed as if such
an outburst of emotion could come only from a child all unacquainted
with grief and unable to control it.

The young doctor laughed blandly. "Blind? No, indeed," he replied.