ill he come to breakfast to-day?
Oh, how my eyes ache! and how obstinately the mist stops in the room!
Suppose I close the window, and go back to bed again for a little while?

_Nine o'clock._--The maid came in half an hour since, and woke me. She
went to open the window as usual. I stopped her.

"Is the mist gone?" I asked.

The girl stared, "What mist, Miss?"

"Haven't you seen it?"

"No, Miss."

"What time did you get up?"

"At seven, Miss."

At seven I was still writing in my Journal, and the mist was still over
everything in the room. Persons in the lower ranks of life are curiously
unobservant of the aspects of Nature. I never (in the days of my
blindness) got any information from servants or laborers about the views
round Dimchurch. They seemed to have no eyes for anything beyond the
range of the kitchen, or the ploughed field. I got out of bed, and took
the maid myself to the window, and opened it.

"There!" I said. "It is not quite so thick as it was some hours since.
But there is the mist as plain as can be!"

The girl looked backwards and forwards in a state of bewilderment between
me and the view.

"Mist?" she repeated. "Begging your pardon, Miss, it's a beautiful clear
morning--as I see it."

"Clear?" I repeated on my side.

"Yes, Miss!"

"Do you mean to tell me it's clear over the sea?"

"The sea is a beautiful blue, Miss. Far and near, you can see the ships."

"Where are the ships?"

She pointed, out of the window, to a certain spot.

"There are two of them, Miss. A big ship, with three masts. And a little
ship just behind, with one."

I looked along her finger, and strained my eyes to see. All I could make
out was a dim greyish mist, with something like a little spot or blur on
it, at the place which the maid's finger indicated as the position
occupied by the two ships.

The idea struck me for the first time that the dimness which I had
attributed to the mist, was, in plain truth, the dimness in my own eyes.
For the moment I was a little startled. I left the window, and made the
best excuse that I could to the girl. As soon as it was possible to
dismiss her, I sent her away, and bathed my eyes with one of Grosse's
lotions, and then tried them again in writing this entry. To my relief, I
can see to write better than I did earlier in the morning. Still, I have
had a warning to pay a little more attention to Grosse's directions than
I have hitherto done. Is it possible that he saw