There was silence for a few moments, and then Fred continued confidentially,—
"Do you know, Miss Bessie, I don't think my father and mother care for me just the same way Rob's and Ted's do for them."
"Why, Fred!" said Bess, with a start of surprise. "What can have given you such an idea?"
"Well, lots of things; their going off and leaving me—but I'm awfully glad they did that, because it's more fun to be here than at home, and they don't write often, nor care to hear from me, only once a month. I've thought it all out, and it's reasonable enough. You see, I can't do things much now, or by and by when I am a man, and they want somebody that can. Father used to say that he hoped I would study to go into his office; and mother wanted me to take dancing lessons, so I could go to parties and things; but of course I can't do that, and I s'pose they are sorry. I don't wonder a bit. I don't mean that they don't care anything about me. Mother said to me one day not long before she went, 'I love you just as well, Fred, as if you weren't blind.' That was the first I'd thought much about it, and then I began to think it over. I don't suppose she does, quite; do you, Miss Bessie?" And he turned his face wistfully up to hers.
"Why, of course, Fred. If anything, my boy, we all love you more than ever, and it is just because we care for you so much that we want you to be a man we can feel proud of."
"Do you honestly like me just as well?" persisted the boy. "I am sure mother doesn't, for she doesn't like to have me round very much, and she never pets me the way she used to do. I heard her tell father once that she used to wish I'd hurry and grow up, but now she never did, because she couldn't see what they'd do with me. It's horrid to feel you're in the way, Miss Bessie!"
"I wish I could keep you always, Fred," said Bess seriously, for she felt the pain in the child's voice and face, as he spoke of his absent mother.
"I just wish you could! You are as good as a mother and sister and brother, all at once. But you said that night, ever so long ago, that I mustn't wish I was dead, or out of the way, or anything, because that's cowardly; but what can I do, when I know I'm going to be in everybody's way?"
"But you aren't, Fred. We all need you and want you with us. You help fill up this house now and make it brighter for us, so we couldn't get along at all without you. And, wherever you go and whatever you do in the future, I want you always to remember that you have this one friend who is looking for the time when her Fred will be a good and true man, and she knows that it will come some day. And always, Fred, when things go wrong, come straight to me, and we will talk it all over together, and see if we can't find the right of it. But don't for a moment think that just because you can't see, we care for you any less, instead of a great deal more than ever."
"More than before I went to Boston?" asked Fred wonderingly. "And you aren't ashamed to take me round with you?"