ve given worlds to have been excused from going down into the
drawing-room. At the last moment I was sent for, and the Hindoo was
introduced to me. The instant I felt him approaching, my darkness was
peopled with brown demons. He took my hand. I tried hard to control
myself--but I really could not help shuddering and starting back when he
touched me. To make matters worse, he sat next to me at dinner. In five
minutes I had long, lean, black-eyed beings all round me; perpetually
growing in numbers, and pressing closer and closer on me as they grew. It
ended in my being obliged to leave the table. When the guests were all
gone, my aunt was furious. I admitted my conduct was unreasonable in the
last degree. At the same time, I begged her to make allowances for me. I
reminded her that I was blind at a year old, and that I had really no
idea of what any person was like, except by drawing pictures of them in
my imagination, from description, and from my own knowledge obtained by
touch. I appealed to her to remember that, situated as I am, my fancy is
peculiarly liable to play me tricks, and that I have no sight to see
with, and to show me--as other people's eyes show _them_--when they have
taken a false view of persons and things. It was all in vain. My aunt
would admit of no excuse for me. I was so irritated by her injustice,
that I reminded her of an antipathy of her own, quite as ridiculous as
mine--an antipathy to cats. She, who can see that cats are harmless,
shudders and turns pale, for all that, if a cat is in the same room with
her. Set my senseless horror of dark people against her senseless horror
of cats--and say which of us has the right to be angry with the other?'"

Such was the quotation from Lucilla's letter to her father. At the end of
it, Oscar resumed, as follows:--

"I wonder whether you will now understand me, if I own to you that I have
made the worst of my case in writing to Lucilla? It is the only excuse I
can produce for not joining her in London. Weary as I am of our long
separation, I cannot prevail on myself to run the risk of meeting her in
the presence of strangers, who would instantly notice my frightful color,
and betray it to her. Think of her shuddering and starting back from my
hand when it took hers! No! no! I must choose my own opportunity, in this
quiet place, of telling her what (I suppose) must be told--with time
before me to prepare her mind for the disclosure (if it must come), and
wi