"I am not nearly so bad as that; I do not expect to fall to pieces for a
good many years, now that father has got his sight. He will be able to
keep us comfortable, like we used to be years ago."

Mrs. Blake having got her patient back into the chair, administered wine
and water to prevent a recurrence of the malady.

A week or two after this Esmerelda informed me one morning that there
were great rejoicings in the Mill Road.

"I think they would like to see you there. I heard Mr. Bowen and some of
them talking about you last night, after meeting."

"Mr. Bowen--was he there?"

"Oh, yes; and he sees as well as anybody."

"I will go to-day," I said, with difficulty restraining my delight.

"Some of the people who attend Beech Street Church think you are a little
above everybody in Cavendish."

Esmerelda spoke with great cordiality. Now that I had been to New York,
and the dressmakers there had transformed me, outwardly, into a
fashionable woman, I noticed that her respect had considerably increased;
and, furthermore, that some of her own costumes had been made in almost
exact imitation of mine. No higher compliment than this could Esmerelda
have paid me; neither could I help acknowledging that she looked very
graceful and lady-like in her Sunday garment, and often I fell to
speculating how she would have appeared if half her life had been spent
at a first-class boarding-school. A painful sensation, probably akin to
jealousy, suggested that probably she would have satisfied my guardian's
fastidious tastes better than I could ever do.

But I could never treat her in the same cordial way that I treated
Mrs. Blake and the Larkums, and several others of her class. These
instinctively made me feel that, no matter how friendly I might be, there
was no danger of their trying to assert an equality, which I suppose has
existed among the members of the human family since shortly after the
expulsion from Eden. With Esmerelda the case was different.

That day I betook myself to the Mill Road with a good deal of expectancy.
I was anxious to see the look of recognition in those once sightless,
disfigured eyes, and to hear how the long-concealed delights of a visible
world once more appeared. As I was walking rapidly along the street, I
saw, approaching me on the Mill Road, one whom I had never noticed there
before. He walked with a quick, energetic step, as if existence was a
rapture and yet I saw, beneath the soft felt hat,