“I was looking at that big woman across the street,” stammered Preston; “how funny she walks!”
“Woman? What woman? Why, that’s a boy with a wheelbarrow,” exclaimed Mr. Garland, in great surprise.
Preston blushed with all his might and dropped his chin.
“Please, don’t tell anybody I took a wheelbarrow for a woman! They’d laugh at me. Of course I knew better as soon as I came to think.”
Mr. Garland stopped suddenly and stared at Preston.
“Look up here into my face, my boy.”
Preston raised his beautiful brown eyes,—those good eyes, which won everybody’s love and trust; and his teacher gazed at them earnestly.
But Mr. Garland was not admiring their beauty or their gentle expression. He saw something else in Preston’s eyes which startled him and gave him a pang. Not tears, for those had been dashed away, but a sort of thin mist lay over them, like that which veils the sun in cloudy weather.
“Can it be possible? Why, Preston, why, Preston, my boy,” said Mr. Garland, taking the young face gently between his hands, “when did things begin to blur so and look dim to you?”
Preston did not answer.