ch
persists in warning her that this is the wrong man--though it speaks in
an unknown tongue. Will she end in understanding the warning before it is
too late? My friend, this note is intended to relieve my mind--not yours.
All you have to do is to read on. Here is the journal. I won't stand
another moment in your way.--P.]

_September_ 2nd.--A rainy day. Very little said that is worth recording
between Oscar and me.

My aunt, whose spirits are always affected by bad weather, kept me a long
time in her sitting-room, amusing herself by making me exercise my sight.
Oscar was present by special invitation, and assisted the old lady in
setting this new seeing-sense of mine all sorts of tasks. He tried hard
to prevail on me to let him see my writing. I refused. It is improving as
fast as it can; but it is not good enough yet.

I notice here what a dreadfully difficult thing it is to get back--in
such a case as mine--to the exercise of one's sight.

We have a cat and a dog in the house. Would it be credited, if I was
telling it to the world instead of telling it to my Journal, that I
actually mistook one for the other to-day?--after seeing so well, too, as
I do now, and being able to write with so few false strokes in making my
letters! It is nevertheless true that I did mistake the two animals;
having trusted to nothing but my memory to inform my eyes which was
which, instead of helping my memory by my touch. I have now set this
right. I caught up puss, and shut my eyes (oh, that habit! when shall I
get over it?) and felt her soft fur (so different from a dog's hair!) and
opened my eyes again, and associated the feel of the fur for ever
afterwards with the sight of a cat.

To-day's experience has also informed me that I make slow progress in
teaching myself to judge correctly of distances.

In spite of this drawback, however, there is nothing I enjoy so much in
using my sight as looking at a great wide prospect of any kind--provided
I am not asked to judge how far or how near objects may be. It seems like
escaping out of prison, to look (after having been shut up in my
blindness) at the view over the town, and the bold promontory of the
pier, and the grand sweep of the sea beyond--all visible from our
windows.

The moment my aunt begins to question me about distances, she makes a
toil of my pleasure. It is worse still when I am asked about the relative
sizes of ships and boats. When I see nothing but a boat, I fancy i