ack again in the corner.

"Walter Young was a man of the old times. He was nearly sixty; his grand
head wore a calm and benevolent expression--a real Apostle's head. His
wife, who always wore a black silk cap, pale and thoughtful, resembled
him much in disposition. Their two profiles, as I looked at them defined
sharply against the little panes of glass in the chalet's windows,
recalled to my mind those drawings of Albert Durer the sight of which
carried me back to the age of faith and the patriarchal manners of the
fifteenth century. The long brown rafters of the ceiling, the deal table,
the ashen chairs with the carved backs, the tin drinking-cups, the
sideboard with its old-fashioned painted plates and dishes, the crucifix
with the Saviour carved in box on an ebony cross, and the worm-eaten
clock-case with its many weights and its porcelain dial, completed the
illusion.

"But the face of their little daughter Raesel was still more touching.
I think I can see her now, with her flat horsehair cap and watered black
silk ribbons, her trim bodice and broad blue sash down to her knees,
her little white hands crossed in the attitude of a dreamer, her long
fair curls--all that was graceful, slender, and ethereal in nature. Yes,
I can see Raesel now, sitting in a large leathern arm-chair, close to the
blue curtain of the recess at the end of the room, smiling as she
listened and meditated.

"Her sweet face had charmed me from the first moment I saw her and I was
continually on the point of inquiring why she wore such an habitually
melancholy air, why did she hold her pale face down so invariably, and
why did she never raise her eyes when spoken to?

"Alas! the poor child had been blind from her birth.

"She had never seen the lake's vast expanse, nor its blue sheet
blending so harmoniously with the sky, the fishermen's boats which
ploughed its surface, the wooded heights which crowned it and cast
their quivering reflection on its waters, the rocks covered with moss,
the green Alpine plants in their vivid and brilliant colouring; nor had
she ever watched the sun set behind the glaciers, nor the long shades of
evening draw across the valleys, nor the golden broom, nor the endless
heather--nothing. None of these things had she ever seen; nothing of what
we saw every day from the windows of the chalet.

"'What an ironical commentary on the gifts of Fortune!' thought I, as I
sat looking out of the window at the mist, in expe