d John, and told
him where I had found his little daughter. He never spoke, but
snatched her out of my arms into his own, took her in his room, and
shut the door.

From that time our fears never slumbered. For one whole week we
waited, watching the children hour by hour, noting each change in each
little face; then Muriel sickened.

It was I who had to tell her father, when as he came home in the
evening I met him by the stream. It seemed to him almost like the
stroke of death.

"Oh, my God! not her! Any but her!" And by that I knew, what I had
long guessed, that she was the dearest of all his children.

Edwin and Walter took the disease likewise, though lightly. No one was
in absolute danger except Muriel. But for weeks we had what people
call "sickness in the house;" that terrible overhanging shadow which
mothers and fathers well know; under which one must live and move,
never resting night nor day. This mother and father bore their
portion, and bore it well. When she broke down, which was not often,
he sustained her. If I were to tell of all he did--how, after being
out all day, night after night he would sit up watching by and nursing
each little fretful sufferer, patient as a woman, and pleasant as a
child play-mate--perhaps those who talk loftily of "the dignity of man"
would smile. I pardon them.

The hardest minute of the twenty-four hours was, I think, that when,
coming home, he caught sight of me afar off waiting for him, as I
always did, at the white gate; and many a time, as we walked down to
the stream, I saw--what no one else saw but God. After such times I
used often to ponder over what great love His must be, who, as the
clearest revelation of it, and of its nature, calls Himself "the
Father."

And He brought us safe through our time of anguish: He left us every
one of our little ones.

One November Sunday, when all the fields were in a mist, and the rain
came pouring softly and incessantly upon the patient earth which had
been so torn and dried up by east winds, that she seemed glad enough to
put aside the mockery of sunshine and melt in quiet tears, we once more
gathered our flock together in thankfulness and joy.

Muriel came down-stairs triumphantly in her father's arms, and lay on
the sofa smiling; the firelight dancing on her small white face--white
and unscarred. The disease had been kind to the blind child; she was,
I think, more sweet-looking than ever. Older, perhaps;