of her life. She
lived in the world of sound, and forgot the midnight that surrounded
her. It was impossible to look upon her without feeling the truth, that
if God closes with Bastile bars one avenue of the senses, He opens
another with widening gates "on golden hinges moving." Alice trembled
with ecstacy at her own exquisite melody, like the nightingale whose
soft plumage quivers on its breast as it sings. She would raise her
sightless eyes to Heaven, following the upward strain with feelings of
the most intense devotion. She called music the wind of the soul, the
breath of God--and said if it had a color it must be _azure_.

One by one they all gathered round the blind songstress. Arthur stood
behind her, and Helen saw tears glistening in his eyes. She did not
wonder at his emotion, for accustomed as she was to hear her, she never
could hear Alice sing without feeling a desire to weep.

"I feel so many wants," she said, "that I never had before."

While Alice was singing, Helen stole softly behind Mittie, and gently
put the flowers on her hair.

"I have stolen your roses," she whispered, "but I do not mean to keep
them."

Mittie's first impulse was to toss them upon the floor, but something in
the eye of Clinton arrested her. She dared not do it. And looking
steadfastly downward, outblushed the roses on her brow.

The cloud appeared to have passed away, and the family party that
surrounded the breakfast table was a gay and happy one.

"I told you," said Mr. Gleason, placing Helen beside him, and smiling
affectionately on her gladsome countenance, "that we should have a very
different looking girl this morning from our poor, little sick traveler.
All Helen wants is the air of home to revive her. Who would want to see
a more rustic looking lassie than she is now?"

"I should like to see how Helen would look now in a yellow flannel
robe," said Louis, mischievously, "and whether she will make as great a
sensation on her entrance into society as she did when she burst into
this room in such an impromptu manner?"

The remembrance of the _yellow flannel robe_, and the eventful evening
to which Louis alluded, was associated with the mother whom she had
never ceased to mourn, and Helen bent her head to hide the tears which
gathered into her eyes.

"You are not angry, gentle sister?" said Louis, seeking her downcast
face.

"Helen was never angry in her life," cried her father, "it is her only
fault that she has