"Just think, it is quite certain that without an operation you will never regain your sight," continued the doctor. "You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. Are you satisfied? Come, go away to your room quietly." "Oh, oh, oh!" sobbed Mercy. "Just imagine, only a few minutes' pain, and even of that you will scarcely be conscious. Before you know what is doing, it will be done." Mercy clung closer to her child, and kissed it again and yet more fervently. The doctors turned to each other. "Strange vanity!" muttered the one who had not spoken before. "Her eyes are useless, and yet she is afraid she may lose them." Mercy's quick ears caught the whispered words. "It is not that," she said passionately. "No, gentlemen," said Greta, "you have mistaken her thought. Tell her she runs no danger of her life." The doctors smiled and laughed a little. "Oh, that's it, eh? Well, we can tell her that with certainty." Then there was another interchange of half-amused glances. "Ah, we that be men, sirs, don't know the depth and tenderness of a mother's heart," said Parson Christian. And Mercy turned toward him a face that was full of gratitude. Greta took the child out of her arms and hushed it to sleep in another room. Then she brought it back and put it in its cradle that stood in the ingle. "Come, Mercy," she said, "for the sake of your boy." And Mercy permitted herself to be led from the kitchen. "So there will be no danger," she said. "I shall not leave my boy. Who said that? The doctor? Oh, good gracious, it's nothing. Only think, I shall live to see him grow to be a great lad!" Her whole face was now radiant. "It will be nothing. Oh, no, it will be nothing. How silly it was to think that he would live on, and grow up, and be a man, and I lie cold in the church-yard, and me his mother! That was very childish, wasn't it? But, then, I have been so childish since Ralphie came." "There, lie and be quiet, and it will soon be over," said Greta. "Let me kiss him first. Do let me kiss him! Only once. You know it's a great risk, after all. And if he grew up--and I wasn't here, if--if--" "There, dear Mercy, you must not cry again. It inflames your eyes, and that can't be good for the doctors." "No, no, I won't cry. You are very good; everybody is very good. Only let me kiss my little Ralphie--just for the last." Greta led her back to the side of the cot, and she spread herself over it with outstretched arms, as the mother-bird poises with outstretched wings over her brood. Then she rose, and her face was peaceful and resigned. The Laird Fisher sat down before the kitchen fire, with one arm on the cradle-head. Parson Christian stood beside him. The old charcoal-burner wept in silence, and the good parson's voice was too thick for the words of comfort that rose to his lips.