d and led the horse to the stable. As Eric and Roland
followed, they heard from behind a partition near by a whining, and a
weak attempt at barking.

"You have some young St. Bernard dogs close by," said Eric.

"Yes; do you know them by their whimper?"

"I can't tell the particular breed in that way. I saw a St. Bernard dog
out there in the court; but I know by the sound that these puppies are
blind and not a week old."

The boy looked at Eric as if he were a magician; he opened a door, but
begged him to go no nearer, because the mother was very savage, and was
just then suckling all the five young ones. Eric did approach her,
however, and she looked at him without growling, and again the boy
gazed at the stranger in astonishment.

"_You_ can certainly tell me why dogs are born blind," he began.

Eric smiled. A boy who asks questions is desirous of instruction and
ready for it; it is only necessary to put things before him which will
lead him to question.

"Not only dogs," replied Eric, "but cats, eagles, and hawks come into
the world blind. It may be that those animals which need sharp eyes for
their support and protection have a gradual development of the power of
sight, so that they do not see the light, as the saying is, all at
once. Man even, though he opens his eyes at his birth, has no real
power of sight at first; he has to learn to see during his first year.
Man, like the brute, learns to use his limbs in his earliest years, but
one thing the brute wants, he can never acquire articulate speech."

A thrill passed over the boy as he listened to the stranger, whose
words again had a tone of strangely magnetic power. In the excited
state in which Eric had been for two days, and which reached its height
at this moment, it seemed to him as if he were acting out a fairy tale,
or one of those dreams in which one says to himself, in the wonder of
the dream-life, "Wake up, you are certainly dreaming!" There was
something which gave him a sense of being merely a spectator of his own
life, though he knew that he was actually living it. He compelled
himself to collect his thoughts, and said at last,--

"You are the son of Herr Sonnenkamp, are you not? and your name is
Roland?"

"Roland Franklin Sonnenkamp; what is yours?"

"Eric Dournay."

The boy started; he thought he had heard the name within a few days,
but was not quite sure.

"You are a Captain of Artillery, sir?" said he, pointing to the
uniform.