It did not kill; it only braced the grateful sufferer for the ordeal set for the next day.
"Find my boy as soon as you can and bring him to me," was her prayer; and with a sense of comfort long a stranger, the mother slept peacefully on this, her last night perhaps, of blindness.
The next day she was made ready for her couch, where she was to lie in perfect quiet after the operation. At two o'clock, Dr. Douglas, with two young assistants, entered easily and cheerfully upon his task.
"Are you strong enough to witness it?" he asked in alow voice, as Doris took her stand.
She bowed her head, and the work began. It was neither long nor difficult. A little cocaine in the eye, a quick, perpendicular incision, the deft scooping from the orifice of a hard, pearly ball like an opal setting, a cleansing of film by one skillful sweep, and all was over.
"Close the eye for a moment," was his order, as incomplete silence the trio hung upon the result.
"Now open it and look."
As the lids parted, he held his hand before them, moving his fingers in quick succession.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Well," he spoke playfully, as to a child; "what is it? I want you to tell me. Do you see anything?"