h up her little
dinner.

"Ah, ha; Mr. Aubrey!--isn't such a day as this worth a whole year in
town?" exclaimed Dr. Tatham.

"Both have their peculiar advantages, Doctor; the pleasure of the
contrast would be lost if"----

"Contrast! Believe me, in the language of the poet Virgil"----

"Ah! how goes on old blind Bess, Doctor?" interrupted Aubrey, as they
approached the smallest cottage in the village--in fact the very last.

"She's just the same as she has been these last twenty years. Shall we
look in on the old creature?"

"With all my heart. I hope, poor soul! that _she_ has not been
overlooked on this festive occasion."

"Trust Mrs. Aubrey for that! I'll answer for it, we shall find old Bess
as happy, in her way, as she can be."

This was a stone blind old woman, who had been bedridden for the last
twenty years. She had certainly passed her hundredth year--some said two
or three years before--and had lived in her present little cottage for
nearly half a century, having grown out of the recollection of almost
all the inhabitants of the village. She had long been a pensioner of
Mrs. Aubrey's, by whom alone, indeed, she was supported. Her great age,
her singular appearance, and a certain rambling way of talking that she
had, had long earned her the reputation, in the village, of being able
to say strange things; and one or two of the old gossips knew of things
coming to pass according to what--poor old soul--she had predicted!

Dr. Tatham gently pushed open the door. The cottage consisted, in fact,
of but one room, and that a very small one, and lit by only one little
window. The floor was clean, and evidently just fresh sanded. On a
wooden stool, opposite a fireplace, on which a small saucepan was
placed, sat a girl about twelve years old, (a daughter of the woman who
lived nearest,) crumbling some bread into a basin, with some broth in
it. On a narrow bed against the wall, opposite the window, was to be
seen the somewhat remarkable figure of the solitary old tenant of the
cottage. She was sitting up, resting against the pillow, which was
placed on end against the wall. She was evidently a very tall woman;
and her long, brown, wrinkled, shrivelled face, with prominent
cheekbones and bushy white eyebrows, betokened the possession, in
earlier days, of a most masculine expression of features. Her hair,
white as snow, was gathered back from her forehead, under a spreading
plain white cap; and her sightless eyes,