old me--reading aloud. The regularity and
rapidity with which his fingers ran over line after line, as if he
were rubbing out something on a slate, were most striking; and as I
stood beside him I distinctly heard him read the verse, "Now Barabbas
was a robber." It was a startling coincidence to find him still
reading the words which Polly overheard, especially as they were not
in any way remarkably adapted for the subject of a prolonged
meditation.

Much living alone with grown-up people had, I think, helped towards my
acquiring a habit I had of "brown studying," turning things over,
brewing them, so to speak, in my mind. I stood pondering the
peculiarities of the object of our charity for some moments, during
which he was elaborately occupied in turning over a leaf of his book.
Presently I said--

"What makes you say it out loud when you read?"

He turned his head towards me, blinking and rolling his eyes, and
replied in impressive tones--

"It's the pleasure I takes in it, sir."

Now as he blinked I watched his eyes with mingled terror, pity, and
curiosity. At this moment a stout and charitable-looking old
gentleman was passing, between whom and my blind friend I was
standing. And as he passed he threw the blind man some coppers. But in
the moment before he did so, and when there seemed a possibility of
his passing without what I suspect was a customary dole, such a sharp
expression came into the scarcely visible pupils of the blind man's
half-shut eyes that (never suspecting that his blindness was feigned,
but for the moment convinced that he had seen the old gentleman) I
exclaimed, without thinking of the absurdity of my inquiry--

"Was it at the Blind School you learnt to see so well with your blind
eyes?"

The "very poor man" gave me a most unpleasant glance out of his
"sightless orbs," and taking up his stool, and muttering something
about its being time to go home, he departed.

Some time afterwards I learnt what led me to believe that he had the
best possible reason for being able to "see so well with his blind
eyes." He was not blind at all.

CHAPTER VIII

VISITING THE SICK

I had been quite prepared to find Polly a willing convert to my
charitable schemes, but I had not expected to find in Cousin Helen so
strong an ally as she proved. But our ideas were no novelty to her, as
we soon discovered. In truth, at nine years old, she was a bit of an
enthusiast. She read with avidity religious