"'Oh, dear doctor!' exclaimed the young mother, 'do not take the baby there! That bright glare of light has dazzled even my strong eyes; and how can her feeble sight endure it?'
"'It is necessary, madam,' replied the doctor. He seemed to be a cross old fellow, but beneath his gruff manner was hidden a great, kind heart.
"He took the child, and having sent the nurse away, turned from the mother, who lay anxiously watching him. He gazed fixedly at little Eva, while he exposed her beautiful and tender eyes to the bright glare of the morning sun. His brow was contracted into a great heavy frown, and a short but deep sigh escaped him; but he never took his eyes from her face: then he forced the lids, with their long silken fringes, far away from the ball of the eye, and little Eva was now screaming with the pain caused by this rough and cruel treatment. Alas! a deeper shade of anxiety crossed the doctor's face, and the hard and unfeeling man, as the weeping mother thought him, drew the infant tenderly to his breast, and murmured in a low tone, 'Poor little thing! poor little helpless thing!' and gave her back to her nurse, and went away without saying another word.
"That same evening the doctor came again. It was very unusual for him to come after dark, and his great creaking boots and rough manner would have broken in upon a very pretty group.
"But he went softly up stairs, and looked in the room, unseen himself. There was the happy mother wrapped in a cashmere, and half-buried in an immense arm-chair, with a sweet motherly look upon her face, watching her darling.
"Close to his wife, Eva's father sat, holding her in his arms; and, wonderful to tell, for a man, holding her quite comfortably; for he had lulled her to sleep with a lullaby of his own composition, the language of which was utterly unknown to the rest of the company. He was learning to talk 'baby talk,' and was really getting on very well, and just now he was looking extremely proud and happy at his success in soothing the little one.
"Opposite to these happy parents sat Mr. Vernon, a noble-looking gentleman, and his wife, a beautiful lady, uncle and aunt to the baby; and, in the distance, was the faithful black nurse, old Dinah, fast asleep, and quite as happy, in her own opinion, as the rest of the party.
"Presently the father laid the baby tenderly down in her beautiful cradle, and while gently rocking her, said softly: 'I wonder what the baby was thinking about while I sang to her?'
"'She looked so wonderfully wise,' said the mother.
"'Did you ever come across that lovely little poem—"What is the little one thinking about?"' said Mr. Vernon. 'I can only remember the last part of it, though my little daughter has often read it to me,' and he recited, in a sweet, low voice, this exquisite little fragment: