et 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