Helen, coming into the room, had overheard Bricktop's opinion, and impulsively reinforced it with her faith. Dr. and Mrs. Sanford for the first time looked into the eyes of the woman who had written to them for Phil and about Phil. Their transparent depths reflected the quality which they had associated with her. Something told her that she was not plain to them, and the thought gave her a thrill of happiness. "What beautiful eyes!" exclaimed Mrs. Sanford involuntarily. "They are like your spirit!" "I----" Helen flushed. No one had ever said this to her except the old artist teacher. That any one should think that anything about her was beautiful! "I'm afraid I was personal!" murmured Mrs. Sanford; and both were embarrassed. "It was a very nice way to be personal," Helen stammered, finding her smile. "How happy he will be to see you! How he loves you!" "And his sight and hearing and speech?" asked Mrs. Sanford. "A long treatment, but they will come back," replied Helen. She led the way into the ward where Phil was in a big chair, a comely figure of youth up to his chin. The rest of him was a ball of white, with a harness of silver woven in with bandages for his lower face, and bandages over his eyes. "Your father and mother have come," Helen wrote on his arm. They sat down without any demonstration, one on each side of his chair, and each took one of his hands, receiving a strong answering clasp. Peter "filled up," as he put up, and went out into the court to pace up and down. When he returned they were in the same position. This hand in his own left hand Phil knew was his father's, because it was larger and bonier than the one in his right, which was soft and yielding. He was thinking of Longfield; seeing the village street under the old elms, the garden and the porch, and the glory of sunrise and sunset in the Berkshires; relieving the joys of sight. In turn, in that silent communion, Dr. and Mrs. Sanford saw him coming up the path to the porch at all ages and on all occasions. "That wiggle of his right foot," said Helen, "means that he wants to talk. Oh, we've developed a remarkable code and we've not gone in for the blind raised letters because he never will need them." She brought a pencil, which she slipped between his fingers, and a pad, which she fixed on a slanting table fastened to the chair. "He's becoming wonderfully good at it," she said, "though at first he was always getting off the track and writing one line over another." Slowly but quite clearly he wrote his big letters on small pages, which Helen passed to the father and mother. "Some family reunion, this! It is a cinch that I get well--father, pardon the language!" This was the first sheet. The two looked at each other and smiled. "It's Phil, all right!" murmured Peter, echoing their thoughts.