I will
never forgive myself for bringing this awful thing down on Roxanne and
her family as long as I live, though Mr. Douglass Byrd says it was not
my fault at all. He was the one that called the present for Belle an
explosion, and so put the idea into Lovelace Peyton's mind. Nobody
knows yet just exactly what did happen or how bad his eyes are hurt,
but the light of all the world is going out for me if Lovelace Peyton
is going blind so he never can be the famous doctor he was born to be.

Old Uncle Pompey has been gasping with asthma in the kitchen since
morning, and all he can tell is that Lovelace Peyton had taken some
kerosene out of the can on the back porch, be thought to just mix with
onions and other things he often uses to make medicines. Suddenly he
heard an explosion in the back yard and ran out to find Lovelace
Peyton's face all burned and him insensible. When Roxanne got to him
he just moaned that he was making an explosion for me, and then the
doctor gave him something to keep him from suffering with the burn
while he dressed it. They can't tell about the eyes as yet.

[Illustration: He just moaned that he was making an explosion]

Miss Prissy is with Roxanne, and they won't let me stay all night, so
I had to come home. Roxanne just won't believe that he won't get all
right, neither will Mr. Douglass Byrd. He was lovelier than ever to
me, but with that same kind of flavor in his kindness that he and Tony
both had yesterday. What can they be pitying me about?

Father has been away a week and I am so sorry. I have just written to
him about the accident, and I know he will be distressed, for he was
as fond of Lovelace as of anybody he knew. I believe he'll come right
home.

How can I go to sleep and wait until morning to know if those lovely,
blue, little-boy eyes will never look up at me again? What can I do to
ease this awful anxiety? As if I didn't know what to do when I have
heard so often about a Person who watches every sparrow's flight.

CHAPTER VIII

These few days have been the most wonderful I have ever spent in all
my life, the saddest and the most deeply happy. When a person's
friends are in trouble, it is one time you can let your heart go its
own pace no matter where it carries you, and for once I have had my
way about pouring out my affection on the Byrds.

Lovelace Peyton is not going to die from his dreadful burns, the
doctors say; but as yet they can't tell about his eyes.