the girl admitted to herself that she was a little tired, and well she might be, for, in addition to her other duties, she had given constant thought and care, as well as much time and countless steps, to the boy who had so grown to depend upon her. But if, at the close of a long day, the thought of her own weariness ever crossed her mind, the memory of all that the child had lost, and of the brave fight he was making against the burden of his blindness, made her scorn the thought of self, as unworthy of the courage and patient endurance she was daily preaching to the child, and gave her new strength to go on.
Rob was in raptures over the prospective journey, and, during the week before they were to start, he made almost hourly calls on Bess, to see how her preparations were coming on. The morning after he was told of his invitation and its acceptance, he was up early, and, before breakfast, had gone into the attic, scattered over the floor the usual contents of a small trunk, long past its days of active service and now only used for storage, and secretly conveyed the trunk to his own room. By dinner-
