ever, as he
too produced a magnifying glass from his pocket, and, gently parting the
patient's eyelids, entered on the examination of her blindness, in his
turn.

The investigation by Mr. Sebright lasted a much longer time than the
investigation by Herr Grosse. He pursued it in perfect silence. When he
had done he rose without a word, and left Lucilla as he had found her,
rapt in the trance of her own happiness--thinking, thinking, thinking of
the time when she should open her eyes in the new morning, and see!

"Well?" said Nugent, impatiently addressing Mr. Sebright. "What do you
say?"

"I say nothing yet." With that implied reproof to Nugent, he turned to
me. "I understand that Miss Finch was blind--or as nearly blind as could
be discovered--at a year old?"

"I have always heard so," I replied.

"Is there any person in the house--parent, or relative, or servant--who
can speak to the symptoms noticed when she was an infant?"

I rang the bell for Zillah. "Her mother is dead," I said. "And there are
reasons which prevent her father from being present to-day. Her old nurse
will be able to give you all the information you want."

Zillah appeared. Mr. Sebright put his questions.

"Were you in the house when Miss Finch was born?"

"Yes, sir."

"Was there anything wrong with her eyes at her birth, or soon
afterwards?"

"Nothing, sir."

"How did you know?"

"I knew by seeing her take notice, sir. She used to stare at the candles,
and clutch at things that were held before her, as other babies do."

"How did you discover it, when she began to get blind?"

"In the same way, sir. There came a time, poor little thing, when her
eyes looked glazed-like, and try her as we might, morning or evening, it
was all the same--she noticed nothing."

"Did the blindness come on gradually?"

"Yes, sir--bit by bit, as you may say. Slowly worse and worse one week
after another. She was a little better than a year old before we clearly
made it out that her sight was gone."

"Was her father's sight, or her mother's sight ever affected in any way?"

"Never, sir, that I heard of."

Mr. Sebright turned to Herr Grosse, sitting at the luncheon-table
resignedly contemplating the Mayonnaise. "Do you wish to ask the nurse
any questions?" he said.

Herr Grosse shrugged his shoulders, and pointed backwards with his thumb
at the place in which Lucilla was sitting.

"Her case is as plain to me as twos and twos make fours. Ach Gott!