The room was soon prepared; a window was thrown open, a lounge drawn under it and bandages prepared. Mary, pale with emotion, when the slender form of her mother was stretched upon the lounge hurriedly withdrew. The colonel seated himself and turned away his face. There was no chloroform, no lecture. With the simplicity of of a child at play, the great man went to work. Turning up the eyelid, he dropped upon the cornea a little cocaine, and selecting a minute scalpel from his case, with two swift, even motions cut downward from the center of the eye and then from the same starting point at right angles. The incisions extended no deeper than the transparent epidermis of the organ. Skillfully turning up the angle of this, he exposed a thin, white growth--a minute cloud it seemed to Edward. "Another drop of cocaine, please," the pleasant voice of the oculist recalled him, and upon the exposed point he let fall from the dropper the liquid. Lifting the little cloud with keen pinchers, the operator removed it, restored the thin epidermis to its place, touched it again with cocaine, and replaced the bandage. The strain of long hours was ended; he had not been in the house thirty minutes. "I felt but the scratch of a needle," said the patient; "it is indeed ended?" "All over," he said, cheerfully. He then wrote out a prescription and directions for dressing, to be given to the family physician. Mary was already by her mother's side, holding and patting her hand. The famous man was an old friend of the family, and now entered into a cheerful discussion of former times and mutual acquaintances. The little boy had entered, and somehow had got into his lap, where all children usually got who came under his spell. While talking on other subjects he turned down the little fellow's lids. "I see granulation here, colonel. Attend to it at once. I will leave a prescription." And then with a few words of encouragement, he went off to the porch to smoke. After dinner the conversation came back to the patient. "She will regain her vision this time," said Dr. Campbell, "but the disease can only be arrested; it will return. The next time it will do no good to operate. It is better to know these things and prepare for them." The silence was broken by Edward. "Are you so sure of this, doctor, that you would advise against further consultation? In Paris, for instance, is Moreau. In your opinion, is there the slightest grounds for his disagreeing with you?" "In my opinion, no. But my opinion never extends to the point of neglecting any means open to us. Were I afflicted with this disease I would consult everybody within reach who had had experience." Edward glanced in triumph at Mary. Dr. Campbell continued: