It was a comfort to him to find that his mother knew all about this. She came and kneeled beside his sofa, and told him that many persons who had lost a limb considered this odd feeling the most painful thing they had to bear for some time; but that, though the feeling would return occasionally through life, it would cease to be painful. When he had become so used to do without his foot as to leave off wanting or wishing for it, he would perhaps make a joke of the feeling, instead of being disappointed. At least she knew that some persons did so who had lost a limb. This did not comfort Hugh much, for every prospect had suddenly become darkened. He said he did not know how he should bear his misfortune;-- he was pretty sure he could not bear it. It seemed so long already since it had happened! And when he thought of the long long days, and months, and years, to the end of his life, and that he should never run and play, and never be like other people, and never able to do the commonest things without labour and trouble, he wished he was dead. He had rather have died. Agnes thought he must be miserable indeed, if he could venture to say this to his mother. She glanced at her mother's face; but there was no displeasure there. Mrs Proctor said this feeling was very natural. She had felt it herself, under smaller misfortunes than Hugh's; but she had found that, though the prospect appears all strewn with troubles, they come singly, and are not worth minding, after all. She told Hugh that, when she was a little girl, very lazy--fond of her bed--fond of her book--and not at all fond of washing and dressing-- "Why, mother, you!" exclaimed Hugh. "Yes; that was the sort of little girl I was. Well, I was in despair, one day, at the thought that I should have to wash, and clean my teeth, and brush my hair, and put on every daily article of dress every morning, as long as I lived. There was nothing I disliked so much; and yet it was the thing that must be done every day of my whole life." "Did you tell anybody?" asked Hugh. "No; I was ashamed to do that: but I remember I cried. You see how it turns out. Grown people, who have got to do everything by habit, so easily as not to think about it, wash and dress every morning, without ever being weary of it. We do not consider so much as once a year what we are doing at dressing-time, though at seven years old it is a very laborious and tiresome affair to get ready for breakfast." "It is the same about writing letters," observed Agnes. "The first letter I ever wrote was to Aunt Shaw; and it took so long, and was so tiresome, that, when I thought of all the exercises I should have to write for Miss Harold, and all the letters that I must send to my relations when I grew up, I would have given everything I had in the world not to have learned to write. Oh! How I pitied papa, when I saw sometimes the pile of letters that were lying to go to the post!"