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
