And his quick perception let nothing escape him.

He seemed to watch lovingly all nature, from the grand lights and shadows which moved over the mountains, to the little moorland flowers which he made Malcolm stop to gather.

All living things too, from the young rabbit that scudded across their path, to the lark that rose singing up into the wide blue air--he saw and noticed every thing.
But he never once said, what Helen, who, as often as her house duties allowed, delighted to accompany them on these expeditions, was always expecting he would say, Why had God given these soulless creatures legs to run and wings to fly, strength, health, and activity to enjoy existence, and denied all these things to him?
Denied them, not for a week, a month, a year, but for his whole lifetime--a lifetime so short at best;--"few of days, and full of trouble." Why could He not have made it a little more happy?
Thousands have asked themselves, in some form or other, the same unanswered, unanswerable question.

Helen had done so already, young as she was; when her mother died, and her father seemed slowly breaking down, and the whole world appeared to her full of darkness and woe.

How then must it have appeared to this poor boy?
But, strange to say, that bitter doubt, which so often came into Helen's heart, never fell from child's lips at all.