Whatever thoughts lay hidden in that boy's mind--he was only ten years old, remember--they were certainly not thoughts of melancholy or despair.
"God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb," and "the back is fitted to the burden," are phrases so common that we almost smile to repeat them or believe in them, and yet they are true.

Any one whose enjoyments have been narrowed down by long sickness may prove their truth by recollecting how at last even the desire for impossible pleasures passes away.

And in this case the deprivation was not sudden; the child had been born thus crippled, and had never been accustomed to any other sort of existence than this.

What thoughts, speculations, or regrets might have passed through his mind, or whether he had as yet reflected upon his own condition at all, those about him could not judge.

He was always a silent child, and latterly had grown more silent than ever.