surd image now in her mind of a face like
yours, by seeing you as you really are at the earliest available
opportunity.'"

We were just walking on again, when certain words in that last sentence
startled me. I stopped short once more.

"Hideous and absurd image?" I repeated, thinking instantly of my
conversation of that morning with Lucilla. "What did Mr. Sebright mean by
using such language as that?"

"Just what I asked him. His reply will interest you. It led him into that
explanation of his motives which you inquired for just now. Shall we walk
on?"

My petrified foreign feet recovered their activity. We went on again.

"When I had spoken to Mr. Sebright of Lucilla's inveterate prejudice,"
Oscar continued, "he had surprised me by saying that it was common in his
experience, and was only curable by her restoration to sight. In support
of those assertions, he now told me of two interesting cases which had
occurred in his professional practice. The first was the case of the
little daughter of an Indian officer--blind from infancy like Lucilla.
After operating successfully, the time came when he could permit his
patient to try her sight--that is to say, to try if she could see
sufficiently well at first, to distinguish dark objects from light. Among
the members of the household assembled to witness the removal of the
bandage, was an Indian nurse who had accompanied the family to England.
The first person the child saw was her mother--a fair woman. She clasped
her little hands in astonishment, and that was all. At the next turn of
her head, she saw the dark Indian nurse and instantly screamed with
terror. Mr. Sebright owned to me that he could not explain it. The child
could have no possible association with colors. Yet there nevertheless
was the most violent hatred and horror of a dark object (the hatred and
horror peculiar to the blind) expressing itself unmistakably in a child
of ten years old! My first thought, while he was telling me this, was of
myself, and of my chance with Lucilla. My first question was, 'Did the
child get used to the nurse?' I can give you his answer in his own words.
'In a week's time, I found the child sitting in the nurse's lap as
composedly as I am sitting in this chair.'--"That is encouraging--isn't
it?"

"Most encouraging--nobody can deny it."

"The second instance was more curious still. This time the case was the
case of a grown man--and the object was to show me what strange fant