“How good you are!” she murmured. “Oh, how I long to see your face!”
“Some day, as true as it is possible, you shall!” he cried. “I cannot believe you are fated to be blind forever. The money is coming in slowly, but it is coming. Pretty soon you will have enough to travel to New York, and have the great specialist treat you.”
“Yes! yes!” she fluttered. “The money never came in so fast as it has since we met you. Jack says each night that the time is growing shorter and shorter. I can remember something about the way things look. I remember the flowers, and I love them so much! They are like fairies, decked out in all their fancy dresses. Sometimes Jack, who knows how dearly I love them—sometimes he brings me home a few. Then I put them in water, and I sit by them, and smell them, and touch them, and whisper to them. It seems that they must hear and understand me.”
Her face was bright as she was speaking, but, of a sudden, it became shadowed and saddened.
“But, for all I can do,” she went on, mournfully, “they wither and die at last. And that hurts me so! I cry over them, and it makes brother feel bad, and he says he will not bring me any more flowers. It doesn’t seem right that beautiful things should fade and die. Oh, why is it so?”
“It is the law of nature,” said Frank, gently. “All things must have an end, but nothing perishes. The flower turns to dust, and from the dust another flower springs perhaps. Something comes from it. There is a constant and continual change, but nothing really perishes.”
“Yes, yes; Jack and I have talked of that. Sometimes we speak of the loss of our dear mother, for she seemed to fade like a flower, and he says we shall find her again—some time.”
“It is a beautiful belief,” said Frank. “But you are getting sad, little Nell; and we are to be happy to-night, you know.”
Then he cheered her up till soon she was laughing.
Jack came to the door and cried: