"I am blind Charlotte Grey; set apart, not lifted up, dearie," returned her cousin, who rarely spoke of her misfortune. Polly looked from one to the other. "Miss Charlotte is the sky, and you are a green field, full of flowers, Rob," she said. "Little singing Polly!" said Miss Charlotte. "A green field for sweet human joys and nourishment! That is the very point, my children." CHAPTER EIGHTEEN ITS GLAD SURRENDER "Why does my Robin sit with her 'head under her wing, poor thing'?" asked Mrs. Grey. For Rob had been very silent and distraught for a few days, which was equivalent to being another person than Roberta Grey. "I think it must be because it's the fall of the year and that my spirits go down with the leaves," said Rob rousing herself. "The thought of the operation on little crippled Jimmy has haunted me--I shall feel better to-morrow when it is over. Or worse," she added as an afterthought. Mrs. Grey had a suspicion that this did not fully account for Rob's depression. She had heard from Wythie of her fears of Rob's bad treatment of Bruce that morning when they had set out together for Miss Charlotte's, but she was far too wise to ask a question or to hint at a more personal trouble in Rob's mind than the operation pending for little crippled Jimmy. She reflected that there was a remedy for this sort of complaint less difficult than a surgeon's knife, a remedy more likely to be taken when not recommended by onlookers. Hester and her mother were staying up on the hill, occupying the rooms which Hester's tactful kindness had secured for them in Myrtle's house, thus giving the young widow just the additional income needed to smooth her hard path. Rob went up to get Hester to go with her to Green Pastures on the morning when the experiment was to be tried which, if it should succeed, would restore Jimmy to his place among fully living people. And which would bring high honour to Bruce, whose theory of Jimmy's trouble was to be worked upon--perhaps this thought, not less than interest in Jimmy, sent Rob's feet rapidly on her way. They were to operate at nine that lovely late September morning; by half-past ten the girls felt that they might venture to Green Pastures without being in the way. They could not talk on their way over, but hurried along in silence, eyes dilated and breath quick as the thoughts of both concentrated on what might be awaiting them at their destination.