er seemed a human creature:
her hair was streaming, her face distorted, her garments torn; she
hurled herself forward with a rattle in her throat,--one knew not
whether to attribute it to either joy, anguish, or rage,--and darted out
her hands like two claws to snatch her child. The chariot halted.

"Here she is," said the gentleman, reaching out the child after kissing
it; and he placed her in her mother's arms, who pressed her to her
breast like a fury. But one of the tiny hands rested a second longer in
the hands of the gentleman; and the latter, pulling off of his right
hand a gold ring set with a large diamond, and slipping it with a rapid
movement upon the finger of the little girl, said:--

"Take this; it shall be your marriage dowry."

The mother stood rooted to the spot, as though enchanted; the crowd
broke into applause; the gentleman put on his mask again, his companions
resumed their song, and the chariot started on again slowly, amid a
tempest of hand-clapping and hurrahs.

THE BLIND BOYS.

Thursday, 24th.

The master is very ill, and they have sent in his stead the master of
the fourth grade, who has been a teacher in the Institute for the Blind.
He is the oldest of all the instructors, with hair so white that it
looks like a wig made of cotton, and he speaks in a peculiar manner, as
though he were chanting a melancholy song; but he does it well, and he
knows a great deal. No sooner had he entered the schoolroom than,
catching sight of a boy with a bandage on his eye, he approached the
bench, and asked him what was the matter.

"Take care of your eyes, my boy," he said to him. And then Derossi asked
him:--

"Is it true, sir, that you have been a teacher of the blind?"

"Yes, for several years," he replied. And Derossi said, in a low tone,
"Tell us something about it."

The master went and seated himself at his table.

Coretti said aloud, "The Institute for the Blind is in the Via Nizza."

"You say blind--blind," said the master, "as you would say poor or ill,
or I know not what. But do you thoroughly comprehend the significance of
that word? Reflect a little. Blind! Never to see anything! Not to be
able to distinguish the day from night; to see neither the sky, nor sun,
nor your parents, nor anything of what is around you, and which you
touch; to be immersed in a perpetual obscurity, and as though buried in
the bowels of the earth! Make a little effort to close your eyes, and to
think