With a choking sob Maude kissed her baby brother, then going back to
her mother, whose head still lay upon the table, she whispered, "We
will love poor Louis all the more, you and I."

Blessed Maude, we say again, for these were no idle words, and the
clinging, tender love with which she cherished her unfortunate
brother ought to have shamed the heartless man who, when he heard of
his affliction, refused to be comforted, and almost cursed the day
when his only son was born. He had been absent for a week or more,
and with the exception of the time when he first knew he had a son
he did not remember of having experienced a moment of greater
happiness than that in which he reached his home where dwelt his
boy--his pride--his idol. Louis was not in the room, and on the
mother's face there was an expression of sadness, which at once
awakened the father's fears lest something had befallen his child.

"Where is Louis?" he asked. "Has anything happened to him that you
look so pale?"

"Louis is well," answered Matty, and then, unable longer to control
her feelings, she burst into tears, while the doctor looked on in
amazement, wondering if all women were as nervous and foolish as the
two it had been his fortune to marry.

"Oh, husband," she cried, feeling sure of his sympathy, and thinking
it better to tell the truth at once; "has it never occurred to you
that Louis was not like other children?"

"Of course it has," he answered quickly. "He is a thousand times
brighter than any child I have ever known."