hich would take me
again up-town, I left the building and returned to ---- Street.

I was out of breath with suspense, as well as with my rapid movements,
when I reached the shut-in staircase and carefully unlocked its narrow
door. But by the time I had reached the fourth floor, and unlocked, with
the same key, the only other door that had a streak of light under it, I
had gained a certain degree of tense composure born of the desperate
nature of the occasion. The calmness with which I pushed open the door
proved this--a calmness which made the movement noiseless, which was the
reason, I suppose, why I was enabled to suppress the shriek that rose to
my lips as I saw that the room had occupants, and that my worst fears
were thus realized.

A woman was sitting, with her back to me, at a table, and before her,
with her face turned my way, was a young girl in whom, even at first
glance, I detected some likeness to myself. Was this why Mr. Allison's
countenance expressed so much agitation when he first saw me? The next
moment this latter lifted her head and looked directly at me, but with
no change in her mobile features; at which token of blindness I almost
fell on my knees, so conclusively did it prove that I was really looking
upon Mrs. Ransome and her daughter.

The mother, who had been directing her daughter's hands in some
needlework, felt that the latter's attention had been diverted.

"What is it, dear?" she asked, with an indescribable mellowness of
voice, whose tone thrilled me with a fresh and passionate pity.

"I thought I heard Mr. Allison come in, but he always knocks; besides,
it is not time for him yet." And she sighed.

That sigh went through my heart, rousing new feelings and deeper
terrors; but I had no time to indulge in them, for the mother turned at
the gasp which left my lips, and rising up, confronted me with an
amazement which left her without any ability to speak.

"Who is it, mother?" inquired the blind girl, herself rising and beaming
upon me with the sweetest of looks.

"Let me answer," I ventured softly. "I am Mr. Allison's wife. I have
come to see if there is anything I can do to make your stay here more
comfortable."

The look that passed over the mother's face warned me to venture no
further in the daughter's presence. Whatever that mother had suffered,
the daughter had experienced nothing but satisfied love and
companionship in these narrow precincts. Her rounded cheeks showed this