Another silence followed. Then Connie spoke.
"Is it not strange, papa, that the only thine here that makes me want to get up to look, is nothing of all the grand things round about me? I am just lying like the convex mirror in the school-room at home, letting them all paint themselves in me."
"What is it then that makes you wish to get up and go and see?" I asked with real curiosity.
"Do you see down there—away across the bay—amongst the rocks at the other side, a man sitting sketching?"
I looked for some time before I could discover him.
"Your sight is good, Connie: I see the man, but I could not tell what he was doing."
"Don't you see him lifting his head every now and then for a moment, and then keeping it down for a longer while?"
"I cannot distinguish that. But then I am shortsighted rather, you know."
"I wonder how you see so many little things that nobody else seems to notice, then, papa."
"That is because I have trained myself to observe. The degree of power in the sight is of less consequence than the habit of seeing. But you have not yet told me what it is that makes you desirous of getting up."