unt, grim and forbidding, with thin lips curved
in a mocking smile, and glittering, snake-like eyes fixed upon my face.
I shivered faintly; and she, though looking quickly at me, seemed to
think she had said enough about my unhappiness. Her next question
surprised me much.

"Are you fair in complexion?" she inquired.

"Yes," said I. "I am very fair--fairer than either of my sisters. But
are you near-sighted?"

"Near sight_less_," she replied, with a bitter little laugh. "Cataract.
I have so many joys in my life that Providence has thought fit to temper
the sunshine of my lot. I am to content myself with the store of
pleasant remembrances with which my mind is crowded, when I can see
nothing outside. A delightful arrangement. It is what pious people call
a 'cross,' or a 'visitation,' or something of that kind. I am not pious,
and I call it the destruction of what little happiness I had."

"Oh, I am very, very sorry for you," I answered, feeling what I spoke,
for it had always been my idea of misery to be blind--shut away from the
sunlight upon the fields, from the hue of the river, from all that "lust
of the eye" which meets us on every side.

"But are you quite alone?" I continued. "Have you no one to--"

I stopped; I was about to add, "to be kind to you--to take care of you?"
but I suddenly remembered that it would not do for me to ask such
questions.

"No, I live quite alone," said she, abruptly. "Did you think of offering
to relieve my solitude?"

I felt myself burning with a hot blush all over my face as I stammered
out:

"I am sure I never thought of anything so impertinent, but--but--if
there was anything I could do--read or--"

I stopped again. Never very confident in myself, I felt a miserable
sense that I might have been going too far. I wished most ardently that
my mother or Adelaide had been there to take the weight of such a
conversation from my shoulders. What was my surprise to hear Miss Hallam
say, in a tone quite smooth, polished, and polite:

"Come and drink tea with me to-morrow afternoon--afternoon tea I mean.
You can go away again as soon as you like. Will you?"

"Oh, thank you. Yes, I will."

"Very well. I shall expect you between four and five. Good-afternoon."

"Let me come with you to your carriage," said I, hastily. "Jane--our
servant is so clumsy."

I preceded her with care, saw her seated in her carriage and driven
toward the Grange, which was but a few hundred yards from ou