ing fast, addressed her in these words:

"There is not, in my soul, a wish or thought that is not for your good,
bright May! There is not, in my soul, a grateful recollection stronger
than the deep remembrance which is stored there of the many many times
when, in the full pride of sight and beauty, you have had consideration
for Blind Bertha, even when we two were children, or when Bertha was as
much a child as ever blindness can be! Every blessing on your head!
Light upon your happy course! Not the less, my dear May,"--and she drew
towards her in a closer grasp,--"not the less, my bird, because, to-day,
the knowledge that you are to be His wife has wrung my heart almost to
breaking! Father, May, Mary! Oh, forgive me that it is so, for the sake
of all he has done to relieve the weariness of my dark life: and for the
sake of the belief you have in me, when I call Heaven to witness that I
could not wish him married to a wife more worthy of his goodness!"

While speaking, she had released May Fielding's hands, and clasped her
garments in an attitude of mingled supplication and love. Sinking lower
and lower down, as she proceeded in her strange confession, she dropped
at last at the feet of her friend, and hid her blind face in the folds
of her dress.

"Great Power!" exclaimed her father, smitten at one blow with the truth,
"have I deceived her from her cradle, but to break her heart at last?"

It was well for all of them that Dot, that beaming, useful, busy little
Dot--for such she was, whatever faults she had, and however you may
learn to hate her, in good time--it was well for all of them, I say,
that she was there, or where this would have ended, it were hard to
tell. But Dot, recovering her self-possession, interposed, before May
could reply, or Caleb say another word.

"Come, come, dear Bertha! come away with me! Give her your arm, May! So.
How composed she is, you see, already; and how good it is of her to mind
us," said the cheery little woman, kissing her upon the forehead. "Come
away, dear Bertha! Come! and here's her good father will come with her,
won't you, Caleb? To--be--sure!"

Well, well! she was a noble little Dot in such things, and it must have
been an obdurate nature that could have withstood her influence. When
she had got poor Caleb and his Bertha away, that they might comfort and
console each other, as she knew they only could, she presently came
bouncing back,--the saying is, as fresh as any dai