gray eyes with black lashes
round them, so like and yet so horribly unlike the happy eyes he had
adored, he could not bear the sight of them and turned away pale as
death. After that he scarcely ever saw him except when he was asleep,
and all he knew of him was that he was a confirmed invalid, with a
vicious, hysterical, half-insane temper. He could only be kept from
furies dangerous to himself by being given his own way in every detail.

All this was not an uplifting thing to recall, but as the train whirled
him through mountain passes and golden plains the man who was "coming
alive" began to think in a new way and he thought long and steadily and
deeply.

"Perhaps I have been all wrong for ten years," he said to himself. "Ten
years is a long time. It may be too late to do anything--quite too late.
What have I been thinking of!"

Of course this was the wrong Magic--to begin by saying "too late." Even
Colin could have told him that. But he knew nothing of Magic--either
black or white. This he had yet to learn. He wondered if Susan Sowerby
had taken courage and written to him only because the motherly creature
had realized that the boy was much worse--was fatally ill. If he had not
been under the spell of the curious calmness which had taken possession
of him he would have been more wretched than ever. But the calm had
brought a sort of courage and hope with it. Instead of giving way to
thoughts of the worst he actually found he was trying to believe in
better things.

"Could it be possible that she sees that I may be able to do him good
and control him?" he thought. "I will go and see her on my way to
Misselthwaite."

But when on his way across the moor he stopped the carriage at the
cottage, seven or eight children who were playing about gathered in a
group and bobbing seven or eight friendly and polite curtsies told him
that their mother had gone to the other side of the moor early in the
morning to help a woman who had a new baby. "Our Dickon," they
volunteered, was over at the Manor working in one of the gardens where
he went several days each week.

Mr. Craven looked over the collection of sturdy little bodies and round
red-cheeked faces, each one grinning in its own particular way, and he
awoke to the fact that they were a healthy likable lot. He smiled at
their friendly grins and took a golden sovereign from his pocket and
gave it to "our 'Lizabeth Ellen" who was the oldest.

"If you divide that into ei