r very nearly had him.'--Page 195.]

But next day mother _was_ quite well, and this lasted, too. Then he
wanted to do something for his father, and as he had heard Mr. Pilkings
complain of his business being very bad, Hildebrand said to Ethel:

'Father made a most awful lot of money yesterday.'

And next day Mr. Pilkings came home and kissed Mrs. Pilkings in the hall
under the very eyes of Sarah and the boot-boy, and said:

'My dear, our fortune's made!'

The family did not have any nicer things to eat or wear than before, so
Hildebrand gained nothing by this, unless you count the pleasure he had
in seeing his father always jolly and cheerful and his mother well, and
not worried any more. Hildebrand _did_ count this, and it counted for a
good deal.

But though Hildebrand was now a much happier as well as a more agreeable
boy, he could not quite help telling a startling story now and then. As,
for instance, when he informed the butcher's boy that there was an
alligator in the back-garden. The butcher's boy did not go into the
garden--indeed, he had no business there, though that would have been no
reason if he had wanted to go--but next day, when Hildebrand, having
forgotten all about the matter, went out in the dusk to look for a fives
ball he had lost, the alligator very nearly had him.

And when he related that adventure of the lost balloon, he had to go
through with it next day, and it made him dizzy for months only to think
of it.

But the worst thing of all was when Ethel was well, and he was allowed
to go back to school. Somehow the fellows were much jollier with him
than they used to be. Even Billson Minor was quite polite, and asked him
how the kid was.

'She's all right,' said Hildebrand.

'When my kiddie sister had measles,' Billson said, 'her eyes got bad
afterwards; she could hardly see.'

'Oh,' said Hildebrand promptly, '_my_ sister's been much worse than
that; she couldn't see at all.'

When Hildebrand went home next day he found his mother pale and in
tears. The doctor had just been to see Ethel's eyes--and Ethel was
blind.

Then Hildebrand went up to his own room. He had done this--his own
little sister who was so fond of him. And she was such a jolly little
thing, and he had made her blind, just for a silly bit of show-off to
Billson Minor; and he knew that the things he had said about Ethel
before had come true, and had not vanished like the things he said
about himself, and he felt th