A KINDLY VISIT.
Willie Mortimer was a cripple, but he did not often complain of his lot, nor, as a rule, did he feel very unhappy about it. His love for drawing and painting was such a resource to him, that when he could hobble on his crutches down to the shore, he was never tired of watching the sea and the boats, and of trying to make sketches which he could work up into pictures at home, as he sat in the window of the little cottage.
But it was a year since the accident which had made the amputation of his leg a necessity, and for the first time Willie's cheerfulness was beginning to forsake him. He could not help noticing how worn and anxious his mother looked, and he knew how hard it was for her to earn enough money, by her plain sewing, to keep up the little house. Until the previous summer she had let lodgings, but she could not manage it when she was nursing Willie, and waiting on him after he left the hospital, and this year no people had applied for her rooms yet.
One of her former lodgers had been an artist, and it was he who, being struck with Willie's talent, had given him instruction, and taught him all he knew about art. But the boy was now thirsting for more knowledge. If only he could be trained to be an artist! That was his dream, and often he would sit at his little window, looking over the blue waters of the bay, while his eyes would fill with tears as he thought how impossible it was for a little ignorant boy to paint pictures which would have any beauty.
His pathetic face attracted Dora and Elsie Vaughan as they passed the cottage every day. They were having a perfectly lovely time in this Devonshire village, where their father had taken a house for the summer holidays. Mr. Vaughan was a celebrated artist, and Willie would watch him eagerly as he passed with his canvas and sketching materials, and would long for a sight of the pictures which would soon be so famous.
'That poor little cripple boy does look sad,' Dora said to her sister. 'I think we ought to go and visit him and take him some flowers.'
'But he is not always a prisoner,' Elsie answered. 'I see him on the beach sometimes with his crutches, and he is often trying to sketch boats and things.'
