e Blind Girl spread her
hands before her face again. But in quite another manner now.

"Dear Mary, a moment. One moment. More this way. Speak softly to me. You
are true I know. You'd not deceive me now; would you?"

"No, Bertha, indeed!"

"No, I am sure you would not. You have too much pity for me. Mary, look
across the room to where we were just now--to where my father is--my
father, so compassionate and loving to me--and tell me what you see."

"I see," said Dot, who understood her well, "an old man sitting in a
chair, and leaning sorrowfully on the back, with his face resting on his
hand. As if his child should comfort him, Bertha."

"Yes, yes. She will. Go on."

"He is an old man, worn with care and work. He is a spare, dejected,
thoughtful, grey-haired man. I see him now, despondent and bowed down,
and striving against nothing. But, Bertha, I have seen him many times
before, and striving hard in many ways, for one great sacred object. And
I honour his grey head, and bless him!"

The Blind Girl broke away from her; and, throwing herself upon her
knees before him, took the grey head to her breast.

"It is my sight restored. It is my sight!" she cried. "I have been
blind, and now my eyes are open. I never knew him! To think I might have
died, and never truly seen the father who has been so loving to me!"

There were no words for Caleb's emotion.

"There is not a gallant figure on this earth," exclaimed the Blind Girl,
holding him in her embrace, "that I would love so dearly, and would
cherish so devotedly, as this! The greyer, and more worn, the dearer,
father! Never let them say I am blind again. There's not a furrow in his
face, there's not a hair upon his head, that shall be forgotten in my
prayers and thanks to Heaven!"

Caleb managed to articulate, "My Bertha!"

"And in my blindness I believed him," said the girl, caressing him with
tears of exquisite affection, "to be so different. And having him beside
me day by day, so mindful of me always, never dreamed of this!"

"The fresh smart father in the blue coat, Bertha," said poor Caleb.
"He's gone!"

"Nothing is gone," she answered. "Dearest father, no! Everything is
here--in you. The father that I loved so well; the father that I never
loved enough, and never knew; the benefactor whom I first began to
reverence and love, because he had such sympathy for me,--all are here
in you. Nothing is dead to me. The soul of all that was most dear to me
is he