Page:Anna Chapin--Half a dozen boys.djvu/249

Rh the girl admitted to herself that she was a little tired, and well she might be, for, in addition to  her other duties, she had given constant thought  and care, as well as much time and countless  steps, to the boy who had so grown to depend  upon her. But if, at the close of a long day, the thought of her own weariness ever crossed  her mind, the memory of all that the child had  lost, and of the brave fight he was making  against the burden of his blindness, made her  scorn the thought of self, as unworthy of the  courage and patient endurance she was daily  preaching to the child, and gave her new  strength to go on.

Rob was in raptures over the prospective journey, and, during the week before they were to start, he made almost hourly calls on Bess, to see how her preparations were coming on. The morning after he was told of his invitation and its acceptance, he was up early, and, before breakfast, had gone into the attic, scattered over the floor the usual contents of a small trunk, long past its days of active service and  now only used for storage, and secretly conveyed the trunk to his own room. By dinner-