Page:Anna Chapin--Half a dozen boys.djvu/51

Rh chance to make a good suggestion. “You are strong enough now to go to drive every pleasant day. Why don’t you?”

“I don’t know; I don’t want to,” said Fred, as the quick color came to his cheeks, that were beginning to have a more healthy look.

Bess was expecting that reply, for several times before now she had tried to coax the boy  into going out. But he had been ill and by himself for so long, and had dwelt so continually  on himself, that he had become very sensitive  about his blindness, a state of mind not at all improved by his mother's tactless attempts at consolation. With Bess he could and did talk freely, but with no one else, and he shrank from meeting any one who called, and obstinately refused to see his boy friends, although Bess urged him to let them come.

It was such an unnatural life for the boy, who, save in the one respect, was rapidly returning to his old strength. Once let him break over this sensitive reserve, and persuade himself to go out and enjoy the boys, and Bess was sure that his life would be easier to bear.

To-day they were in their usual place by the