It was not until the nineteenth of May that the burly, grey-haired little doctor could say definitely that Carl would get well. And even then he could not entirely dissolve the cloud that hung over the family. Carl’s eyes which had always been weak and near-sighted had been gravely injured by incessant overstraining, and the doctor said frankly enough that unless he took the greatest care of them there was a strong possibility of his losing his sight.

“No books, Mrs. Lambert. Nothing but rest,” he said, firmly. “Later, he must be out of doors. Plenty of exercise, plenty of sleep, and no study for at least a year.”

This program, so entirely opposed to all Carl’s tastes was not imparted to him until he was well on the road to recovery. He listened to it stoically, propped up among Aunt Gertrude’s downiest feather pillows, in the dark bedroom, a green shade almost bandaging his eyes, and hiding half of his thin white face.

“Does the old boy think there’s a likelihood of my being blind anyway?” he inquired, using the blunt word without a tremor. No one answered him. His face turned a shade paler as he turned helplessly from one side to the other trying to guess where his mother and father were standing. Mr. Lambert attempted to say something, but all he could do was to take his son’s groping hand in his.

“Well—that’s all right, father. I guess I’ll go to sleep now,” said Carl, after a short pause. “There’s no good kicking up a fuss about that yet.” And drawing his hand away he lay down quietly, turning his face to the wall. He was quite still, until, thinking that he was asleep, his father and mother left the room noiselessly, Mr. Lambert with his arm around his wife’s shoulders.

Then, wide-awake, Carl almost savagely worked himself up on his pillows, and sat alone, thinking.

He wondered what time it was. He did not know whether it was morning or afternoon. That it was day and not night he could guess from the busy rumbling of wagons on the street, and the soft chattering of the twins’ voices in the little garden below. Then he heard the solemn, monotonous tones of the old church clock.

“Just noon-day,” he thought. “The twins have been home all morning, so school must have closed. And it must be fair, or they wouldn’t be playing in the garden.”

At that moment he heard careful, tiptoeing footsteps outside his door. He had already become quick at recognizing the tread of different members of the family, and without the least uncertainty he called out,

“Paul!”

Then he heard the door open.

“I thought you were asleep,” said Paul’s voice.

“Well, I’m not.” Then in a jocose tone, Carl said, “It’s a beautiful day, isn’t it?”

“Why, yes,” answered Paul, in some surprise. “Look here—have you been taking off that bandage?”

“No. But it is a beautiful day isn’t it? I just wanted to be sure I guessed right.”

Paul said nothing. To him there was something indescribably terrible and touching in Carl’s cheerfulness, and in the sight of that half-hidden face turned nearly but not exactly in his direction.

“You heard what the doctor said,” said Carl abruptly, “there’s a chance that I may be blind, isn’t there? Come on, and tell me. You certainly can’t keep me from knowing sooner or later. Did he say that?”

“Yes. He did,” Paul replied briefly. Carl seemed to think this over quite calmly for a moment or two; then with a dignity that he had never shown before, he said slowly,

“You once said I was a coward, cousin. And you were right. I am a coward in the way you big fellows think of it. But maybe I’m not a coward in every way. Maybe I’m not. I don’t know. Maybe I am.” Paul said nothing, but stood helplessly with his hands on the back of the chair.

“Sit down—that is, if you want to,” Carl suggested rather awkwardly. “It isn’t time for your lunch yet, is it? Where’s Janey?”

“She’s helping Elise.” Paul sat down, crossed his legs and looked at his cousin, not knowing exactly what else to say. He looked odd enough sitting there, in his apron, his sleeves rolled up and his shirt open at the neck, sunburnt and strong in contrast to the bony, pallid boy in the bed.

Carl fingered his eyeshade wistfully.

“Lord, I wish I could take this confounded thing off for just a minute,” he muttered moving his head restlessly. “Do you believe what the doctor says?”

“I believe you’ll be all right in six months,” said Paul. Carl sat bolt upright.

“Do you think so? Do you really. You aren’t saying that just to cheer me up? No, you wouldn’t do that, would you?”

“No,” said Paul, “I wouldn’t.”

“Do you think I’ll be able to go back to school next year?”

“No,” said Paul, “I don’t.”

“You don’t?” Then Carl laughed. “Well, I’m glad you say what you think.”

“It’s very likely, though, that you’ll be able to study a little, and a fellow as clever as you are won’t be behind long,” went on Paul, gravely. Carl was vastly pleased at the compliment.

“What makes you think I’m—clever?” he asked presently.

“Why, you are,” answered Paul in a surprised tone, and then with a rather sad little laugh, he added, “I wish I knew one tenth—one hundredth as much as you do. I’m a dunce, I don’t know as much as Lottie does—not nearly.”

In the face of this humble remark, Carl remembered rather uncomfortably the innumerable jibes he had directed at his cousin’s ignorance.

“Well, you can teach yourself a lot,” he said a little patronizingly. Paul laughed.

“I try to. But I—I can’t even read decently, and it takes the dickens of a long time.”

“Can’t read!” cried Carl.

“Well, not enough to boast of. I never went to school in my life. A long time ago my mother or somebody must have taught me something, and then I picked up what I could here and there. There was an old fellow I knew years ago,—he was a passenger on a little coast trading vessel—we were going from Marseilles down to the south of Italy, and on the voyage, which was pretty slow,—because we sometimes stayed for two or three days at different ports,—he taught me a few things. And then I learned to read French pretty well, and a little Italian, and a young Englishman—a college fellow, who’d given up studying for the ministry and run away to sea—even taught me some Latin, though what under Heaven he thought I’d do with it I don’t know. He was a funny one,” said Paul, chuckling reminiscently, “a thin little chap, with a long nose. He used to say that every gentleman should have a knowledge of the classics, and you’d see him washing the deck, with copy of some old Latin fellow’s poetry sticking out of his back pocket.”

“What did he go to sea for?” inquired Carl; for the first time he had deigned to listen to some of Paul’s adventures, and he found himself getting very much interested.

“I don’t know. His uncle was a lord or something—at least he told me so, and I daresay it was true. He said he was a younger son, though what that had to do with it I don’t know. Anyway it seemed to be an awfully important thing for me to remember. He wanted to make something of himself, he said. I told him he’d do better as—well, anything but a cabin boy, or deck hand or whatever he was. But he said he loved the sea—though he was just about the worst sailor I ever saw.”

“What happened to him?”

“I don’t remember. Oh, yes, I do. The poor little cuss died—got typhus or something and off he went. Bill Tyler told me about it. They buried him at sea.”

“Who was Bill Tyler?”

“Bill was—everything! He was an old bird—older than father. He’d done everything, seen everything—you never knew such a man! He couldn’t write his own name, but he was the canniest, drollest—and talk about strength! Next to father, I guess I liked him better than anyone on earth!” Paul’s face glowed, and he launched forth into an animated account of his friend’s virtues and exploits, urged on eagerly by Carl, who made him go on every time he stopped. There were no absurd exaggerations, a la Munchausen, in his tales that day. He was thinking only of amusing the sick, feeble boy, and making him forget his own dreary thoughts. Nor did he once reflect that it was this same boy who had told him so passionately that he “hated him, and always would.”

Elise appearing at the door with Carl’s tray stopped short at the sound of his laugh—the first spontaneous laugh she had heard from him in many a day.

“How much better you seem, dear,” she said, setting the tray on his knees, and shaking up his pillows. “Paul, your lunch is waiting for you.” She sent him a grateful glance.

“If you haven’t anything special to do, come on up when you’ve fed,” suggested Carl elegantly. Elise nodded eagerly, and following Paul to the door, said in a low voice,

“I wish you would, cousin. There isn’t much to be done to-day—I can take care of it, and it seems to have done him so much good.”

So Paul spent the afternoon, a long, sunny afternoon, in that dark room, talking to his cousin, telling him about people he had seen—and what a heterogeneous collection they were!—places he had visited, adventures he and his father had had together. A whole new world he opened to the young bookworm, who listened with his hands folded, and a keen but detached interest, to all these tales of action and happy-go-lucky wanderings.

“All that’s great to hear about,” remarked Carl, “but I don’t think I’d like to live that way. Too much hopping about, and too—uncomfortable.”

“I suppose it was uncomfortable—but I never knew what it was to be comfortable—that is, to be sure of a good bed to sleep in, and plenty to eat, and all that—so I never minded.”

“It must bore you to be cooped up here—baking cakes! Ha-ha!” Carl laughed outright. “I never thought before of how funny that was!”

“I have,” remarked Paul, drily.

“What do you suppose that Bill Tyler would say?”

“I can’t imagine,” replied Paul, smiling glumly. “He’d probably say it was a good job, and that I ought to thank Heaven for it. He was a practical old egg, or he pretended to be. He was forever preaching what he called ‘hard sense’—and getting himself into more tight squeezes—he was worse than father. He had more common sense and used it less than any man I ever saw.”

“Do you really want to be a painter?” asked Carl suddenly. “That’s such a queer thing to want to be.”

“Oh, well,” said Paul, evidently not anxious to pursue the subject.

“And so—useless.”

“That’s what Bill Tyler used to say. And yet he was the one who took me to a picture gallery for the first time in my life—I was only eleven or twelve years old. And it was there that I met old Peguignot—so it was partly Bill’s fault that I began to think about painting at all. The old duffer! He’d spend an entire afternoon rambling around some gallery, going into raptures over this picture and that, pointing out what he liked and what he didn’t like—and then when we’d come out, he’d say, ’but that’s all nonsense, and waste of time.’”

“Who was Peguignot?”

“Why, he was a little artist—a funny, shabby, excitable little guy, with a perfectly enormous moustache that looked as if it were made out of a lot of black hairpins; and his eyebrows were just like it. When he talked and got enthusiastic about something, they’d all work up and down. Bill and I came upon him one day in some gallery or other. He was sitting up on a high stool making a copy of a big religious painting. Bill began to talk to him, and, I suppose, just to tease him, started on his favorite line about what nonsense it all was. I thought Peguignot would blow up. He shook a whole handful of wet paint-brushes in Bill’s face, called him every name he could think of—I began to laugh and then he turned on me, and told me I was a miserable boy, and please both of us to go far away from him. But I said I agreed with him altogether, and then we both started in on Bill. Well, anyhow it wound up by all of us getting to be the best of friends; and after that Bill and I used to go around and see him quite often. And he taught me all I ever learned about painting. He wasn’t very good himself, and he certainly wasn’t successful, but he knew a lot, and when he wasn’t exploding about something, he could tell what he knew very clearly. Poor little beggar, he had a hard time of it—he was as poverty-stricken as Job most of the time.” And then Paul began to laugh. “I remember one day his landlady came up to get his rent. He heard her coming, and got into a perfect panic, and was actually trying to crawl under his bed when she knocked at the door. Then he got very calm and dignified, and told me to let her in. So in she came, and then an argument began, and finally both of them started to weep and wring their hands—you never heard such a rumpus. Finally he said to her, ‘Madam, put me out. Put me out on the streets—it is what I deserve,’ and he began to hunt for his bedroom slippers which were the things that were most precious to him I suppose. And then she threw her apron over her head and wailed, and said she couldn’t do that because he was so ‘leetle.’ Well, at last he took a picture that I had painted down from his easel, and said to her, ‘Madam, I give you this. Sell it, and keep the money.’ Well, she stood there glowering as if she simply couldn’t think of anything strong enough to say; until she suddenly roared out, ‘Ah-h-h! You leetle moustache! Why don’t you sell it yourself! Then I should have my money.’ And she took the picture with both hands, and banged him over the head with it. But at last she said she’d wait another month, and then she would have him imprisoned—and off she went with my picture.”

Carl laughed.

“And did he pay her the next month?”

“I don’t know. In any case, he certainly wasn’t imprisoned. But don’t think he took his debts lightly. He was ashamed of them and he was ashamed of himself; and he worked for money in the only way he could, and never tried to shirk his responsibilities. People knew that, and they were lenient with him, because he was honest and good and they loved him.”

There was a pause, then Carl asked curiously, but with some hesitation,

“If I—if my eyes don’t get all right, what will you do?”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean—will you stay on in the business?”

“In any case, it’s my job, isn’t it?” returned Paul evasively. Then suddenly, he dropped his face in his hands. For so many nights, in the little room to which he had been relegated since Carl’s illness, he had been wrestling with that problem. A hundred times he had decided that there would be only one course open to him in the event that Carl should not get well; he would stay with his family and help them. His uncle was getting old, and the silent, tragic appeal in the poor man’s eyes, and his dreadful anxiety about his son had touched Paul even more than Aunt Gertrude’s sorrow.

“Ah, well, what’s the use of trying to settle the whole course of your life,” he said aloud, but more as if he were speaking to himself. “You get worked up, and start pitying yourself before there’s anything definite to pity yourself for.” Then suddenly, he said, “Tell me, cousin, I have wanted to ask you—why is it that you hated me? If you don’t want to answer never mind. We seem to be friends now—or I may be mistaken.”

Carl was silent for several moments, then he said rather gruffly,

“I—there was no reason perhaps. Let that be. You were right—when you said that I didn’t hate you as much as I thought I did.”

That was the last reference that was made to their former enmity. They were too different, perhaps, ever to be really intimate, but the hatchet was buried between them.

During Carl’s convalescence Paul was with him a great deal. His stock of stories seemed inexhaustible, and in lieu of books Carl found them the only source of novel entertainment to be had; and for the time being Paul was exempted from his duties in the Bakery to amuse his cousin. It was not any too amusing for him; but he willingly passed hour after hour at Carl’s bedside. It was the sight of the bandaged eyes that kept his sympathy keen and made him gentle and patient even when Carl was fretful and hard to please.

One day Carl said to him,

“Why don’t you read aloud to me? The doctor says it’ll be all right now. I’ve a mountain of stuff to make up for school, and we’ll both gain something.”

Paul blushed. He was not particularly keen on displaying his shortcomings outright to Carl, even if he did confess them. But oh second thoughts, he got the book that his cousin asked for, and opening it, plunged in bravely. It was a humiliating experience for him, to have to stop before a long word, and pronounce it syllable by syllable, and although Carl did not laugh at him, he corrected him with an air of grave superiority that was even more trying. But the very fact that he did not shine in this particular province, increased Carl’s good will toward him.

“You are getting on very well,” he said in a patronizing tone. “Keep it up.”

The books that they read frequently led to arguments—friendly debates, and these were Carl’s special delight. He liked to pretend that he was addressing a jury, and would launch forth into a flood of eloquence, to which Paul listened very respectfully, usually taking care not to contradict his cousin or to wound his vanity by remaining unconvinced by his oratory. But sometimes he would get carried away himself, and a vigorous battle would follow, in which Paul had only his clear, simple reasoning to pit against Carl’s confusing knowledge. But both of them enjoyed it; Carl loved to dispute any point at all, and Paul “liked the exercise.”

But in the long run, Paul found Carl’s favorite occupations very little to his taste. He grew weary of his cousin’s books, with their long-winded dissertations, he positively hated the dim room; and the innumerable games of checkers that they played, when Carl’s eyes finally began to improve, gradually developed in him a profound detestation of that pastime. His only satisfaction came to him from his aunt’s and uncle’s gratitude.

By the end of the month Carl was well enough to sit up in a chair by the window for three or four hours a clay, and even to take off his eyeshade for a little while in the evening when the light was softer. The family happiness over this improvement was boundless, and in the late afternoons everyone gathered in Carl’s room. These were gay occasions, and even Mr. Lambert, who always sat beside his son, and never took his eyes from his face, cracked jokes, and laughed and was in the best humor imaginable.

One Sunday afternoon they were thus collected—all of them, including Granny, who sat rocking serenely back and forth, smiling benignly and a little absent-mindedly upon them all, winding a skein of deep magenta wool, which Lottie held for her. The whole room was in pleasant disorder, books and games lay scattered around, for Mr. Lambert had relaxed his usual strict Sabbath rules while Carl was ill, and permitted all sorts of uncustomary amusements. Minie was cutting new paper dolls out of the Sunday paper, and painting them in glorious hues. Everyone was gossiping and chattering—everyone, that is except Jane and Paul, who sat on the little bench that made a seat in the embrasure of the casement window.

Jane, who had missed her cousin severely during the last weeks, was content to have him with her again, and sat beside him, looking through the section of the newspaper that Minie had graciously spared. Paul, a trifle out of spirits, was staring out of the window. It was open, admitting a gentle evening breeze, which rustled through the full-blown foliage of Jane’s beloved nut-tree. Below, on the other side of the street some children were playing hop-scotch. And from somewhere came the sound of boyish voices singing in “close harmony”—“I was seeing Nelly ho-ome, I was seeing Nelly home, It was from Aunt Dinah’s quilting party, I was seeing Nel-ly home.”

Suddenly Jane laid her hand on Paul’s to attract his attention. “Look! Look at this, Paul,” she said in a low voice, putting the paper on his knee, and pointing to a paragraph.

He glanced down and read,

“C——. June 1st. The Academy of Arts announces that it will offer a series of prizes for painting and sculpture, to be competed for according to the following rules.” Then followed a list of regulations, after which the notice went on to say that, “All work must be submitted on or before September 1st. Three prizes will be awarded in each department. No work will be considered unless etc., etc.”

“Well, what of it?” said Paul, shortly.

“Can’t you—why don’t you—”

“You know I can’t. Look at that kid down there, will you—”

“Paul, why not?”

“Because I can’t, I tell you,” he repeated, irritably.

“But why don’t you try,” persisted Jane, undaunted. “If you don’t win anything, there’s no harm done, and if you should, Paul—if you should—”

“When and where would I be able to do any work, will you tell me?” He spoke almost angrily, but he took the paper from her hand and looked at it again.

“What are you two whispering about?” inquired Carl. He still felt a twinge of jealousy when he saw Jane and Paul talking without taking him into their confidence.

“Nothing,” said Paul. “Just something Jane saw in the paper.” And picking up Minie’s rubber ball he began to bounce and catch it monotonously.

“What is it?”

With a shrug of his shoulders, Paul handed the paper over to Carl, pointing out the paragraph. Carl gave it to Mr. Lambert.

“Read it, father.” So Mr. Lambert put on his spectacles, while Jane looked uneasily at Paul.

Mr. Lambert read it aloud, and then without making any comment, laid the paper aside. He looked displeased.

“Why don’t you compete, Paul?” said Carl suddenly. “There’d be no harm in trying.”

Then Aunt Gertrude, glancing timidly at her husband, found courage to put in a word.

There was a silence, during which everyone waited for Mr. Lambert to say something; but no remark from him was forthcoming. That he was annoyed could be seen plainly, but because the suggestion had come from Carl he maintained his silence.

“Do you think you’d stand any chance of winning, Paul?” Carl asked secure in his peculiar privileges of free speech.

“I don’t know. How should I?”

Jane was simply on tenter-hooks. If only Carl would take up the case!

“Would you like to try it?”

“Yes. I would.”

“Well, why don’t you? You could find some place—”

“That isn’t the point,” interrupted Paul, looking directly at his uncle, “it’s up to you, Uncle Peter. You told me that I wasn’t to touch a paint-brush while I was in your house. And I haven’t. But I—”

“Well, you’ll let him, won’t you, father? He might as well have a go at it.”

“My boy, I think it is hardly—”

“But it’s only a little matter, father. I’d like to see how he’d make out. We’d feel pretty fine if he should win anything, and if he doesn’t, there’s nothing lost.”

Mr. Lambert bit his lip. But at that time he could no more have refused his son’s slightest wish than he could have struck him.

“Well, well—go ahead if you want, Paul. I am sure I wish you every success.” It was stiffly and unwillingly said, but it was a victory nonetheless, and Paul did not know whether to be more amazed at his uncle’s concession or at Carl’s intercession. Jane, her face beaming with delight, started to clap her hands, and then realizing that any evidences of unseemly joy might have unpleasant results, quickly folded them in her lap.

And so it came about, through the play of circumstances, that the one member of the Lambert family who had been so bitterly inimical to Paul for eight months assumed the rÔle of benefactor, and gallantly squared his debt by a few right words spoken at exactly the right moment.