, and when on his return from his
"graveyard musings," Maude, aged forty-one, asked him for the twenty
dollars which she saw a man pay to him that morning, he gave it to
her without a word.

Meanwhile the fickle J.C. in Rochester was one moment regretting the
step he was about to take and the next wishing the day would hasten,
so he could "have it over with." Maude Remington had secured a place
in his affections which Nellie could not fill, and though he had no
wish to marry her now, he tried to make himself believe that but for
her misfortune she should still have become his wife.

"Jim would marry her, I dare say, even if she were blind as a bat,"
he said; "but then he is able to support her," and reminded by this
of an unanswered letter from his cousin, who was still in New
Orleans, he sat down and wrote, telling him of Maude's total
blindness, and then, almost in the next sentence saying that his
wedding was fixed for the 5th of March. "There," he exclaimed, as he
read over the letter, "I believe I must be crazy, for I never told
him that the bride was Nellie; but no matter, I'd like to have him
think me magnanimous for a while, and I want to hear what he says."

Two weeks or more went by, and then there came an answer, fraught
with sympathy for Maude, and full of commendation for J.C., who "had
shown himself a man."

Accompanying the letter was a box containing a most exquisite set of
pearls for the bride, together with a diamond ring, on which was
inscribed, "Cousin Maude."

"Aint I in a deuced scrape," said J.C., as he examined the beautiful
ornaments; "Nellie would be delighted with them, but she shan't have
them; they are not hers. I'll write to Jim at once, and tell him the
mistake," and seizing his pen he dashed off a few lines, little
guessing how much happiness they would carry to the far-off city,
where daily and nightly James De Vere fought manfully with the love
that clung with a deathlike grasp to the girl J.C. had forsaken, the
poor, blind, helpless Maude.

CHAPTER XVII.

NELLIE'S BRIDAL NIGHT.

The blind girl sat alone in her chamber, listening to the sound of
merry voices in the hall without, or the patter of feet, as the fast
arriving guests tripped up and down the stairs. She had heard the
voice of J.C. De Vere as he passed her door, but it awoke within her
bosom no lingering regret, and when an hour later Nellie stood
before her, arrayed in her bridal robes, she passed her hand