“There’s something in that,” Tommy admitted. “O, I know how we can get around that. If the doctor cures Rose, you two stop at my house first when you get back. I’ll go along over to Mrs. Harrow’s and talk with her a while and break it to her very gently that you have gone over Paulding way with Rose to see a doctor that cures blindness and that she had better be prepared for anything. Then I’ll give the signal—probably by coming out the door—and you’ll walk right in.”
“We’ll all almost die of joy, I am sure!” cried Betty.
CHAPTER XIX
IT was hard to wait, but Betty decided to say nothing to Rose until next day. She merely asked her to spend the following afternoon with her, begging her to come early because Aunt Sarah was away and she would be alone as soon as her father returned to the shop.
The moment the two girls were alone, Betty divulged the secret. Rose was delighted and shared Betty’s confidence, but she was the less enthusiastic of the two. As she didn’t, in truth, suffer nearly so keenly because of her blindness as Betty suffered for her, so release from it did not seem so wildly thrilling a possibility as it seemed to the other.
They went by a roundabout way to the station, took the Paulding train, and waited there for the train for the north which stopped at Millville.
Betty had never been in the village street before. It was shockingly dirty as well as ugly, and the girl felt it a sad pity that it should be the first sight that would greet Rose after her long sitting in darkness. The Eagle Hotel, too, would have seemed extremely dingy elsewhere, though here it gained something from the contrast with the surrounding buildings; and its parlor though not plural, as the advertisement indicated, nor spacious, was fairly tidy and too faded and neutral to be offensive. Moreover, Dr. Vandegrift himself fell far short of the glamor of the newspaper portrait. But Betty felt no disappointment. His glasses with the wide black ribbon connected, and his pointed beard made him the ideal specialist to her, and though she knew Tommy would be disappointed in regard to the medals, she felt it more dignified of the doctor not to wear them. And Rose declared afterwards that she knew from the sound of his voice just how wonderful he was.
Rose was extremely easy in her movements, and when Betty explained that her friend was blind, the doctor was almost discourteous. As a matter of fact, he believed these well-dressed, well-bred strangers, who were obviously not of Millville, were trying to play a trick upon him. Indeed, Betty’s height and the direct gaze of the smaller girl led him to suspect that they acted as detectives. Then he looked sharply at the tall lady and saw that she was only a child, with a child’s innocent honesty in every line of her fair face, and he knew that she spoke the truth—that it wasn’t in her to do otherwise. And he wasn’t surprised when, with a quick, unexpected motion, he brought his hand so close to the little girl’s eyes that it almost grazed the lashes, she did not flinch. His tone changed immediately to that of utter suavity, as he put a few questions—professional-sounding questions.
Then he took them into a small inner room which was darkened, placed Rose in a big chair that made her feel as if she were going to have a tooth pulled, and putting an extra glass over one eye, flashed a light into hers and peered into them in turn. As he did so, he asked a great many questions as to the condition of her eyes before the attack of scarlet fever, and whether she remembered falling and striking on the back of her head. Then he wished to know whether she ever had spots or patches of color before her now, and whether there were any pressure on either side of her head, and many other questions which should, it seemed, have been simple to answer, but which were somehow very difficult for Rose. As she said to Betty afterwards, she no sooner answered a question than she felt she had stated the very opposite of the truth and ought to take it back. And once when he said: “You are quite sure it wasn’t the right?” she had declared that it was right and that was just what she had meant to say.
Finally he put out the light and raised the blind. Betty’s heart sank. He was through and he hadn’t even tried the eye-cup. Rose’s blindness was inveterate!