e awoke and got
frightened about her again. And thus passed many days in which every
body thought a great deal more about his eyes than he did himself.
Besides from the cheerful things they said to him he quite expected to
be better some day; and so weeks and months passed, and by the time
the hope of recovering his sight began to fade away, and nobody any
longer dared to say they expected it, he was beginning to get used to
his condition, and to find out amusements in new ways. Thus mercifully
does a kind Providence temper people's minds to the afflictions He
sends. They are often more dreadful to think of than to bear; for God
can give patience and cheerfulness and comfort to those that do not
grumble and repine.

Madeline only exacted one promise from her husband, namely, that he
would not allow the doctors to use any very severe and violent
measures with her little boy, and this being settled, she struggled to
bear the trouble with resignation. After the first alternations of
hopes and fears were over, the Mother's mind took a new turn. "It is
our chief duty now," she said, "to make our child's life as happy as
it is possible to be with blindness, and therefore," added she to the
elder children, "we must try our best to teach him to do all the nice
things he can without seeing." That day she asked him to come and hold
worsted for her to wind, and he was quite delighted to find that with
some blunders, and once or twice slipping it off his fingers, he could
manage it very well. Then the children undertook to teach him how to
play at ball, and you cannot think how clever he became. At first
certainly they had always to pick up his ball for him when it fell,
and who was not glad to do it for poor brother Roderick? but by
degrees he could judge by the sound in what direction it had tumbled,
and he would often succeed in finding it before any one could come up
to it. Then there was laughing and scrambling without end. Reading
aloud to him was the easiest thing of all, but the little folks were
not satisfied with that alone. They made a sort of pet of the blind
brother, and were as proud of teaching him to do any thing fresh, as
you would be of teaching your dog to sit up and shake hands, or
perform any wonderful feat. It was their constant amusement; and by
degrees Roderick could play at all sorts of games with them, ay, and
run after them, and catch them too as well as you could do, for he
soon got to remember how the