nourable way of treating their positions.

"He feels it all so terribly that it would be like tying me down--that
it would be terrible for me--because he is blind."

She wiped her eyes, and a bright smile played about her lips, for there,
self-pictured, was a happy future for them both, and she saw herself
lightening the great trouble of John Grange's life, and smoothing his
onward course. There was their happy home with her husband seeing with
her eyes, guided always by her hand, and looking proud, manly, and
strong once more as she had known him of old.

"It will only draw us closer together," she said softly; "and father
will never refuse when he once feels it's for my happiness and for poor
John's good."

But the smile died out as black clouds once more rose to blot out the
pleasant picture she had formed in her mind; and as the mists gathered
the tears fell once more, hot, briny tears which seemed to scald her
eyes as she sank upon her knees by the bedside and buried her face in
her hands.

That night Mary Ellis's couch remained unpressed, and the rising sun
shone in at the window upon her glossy hair where she crouched down
beside her bed.

It was a movement in the adjoining room which roused her from the heavy
stupor into which she had fallen, for it could hardly be called a
natural sleep, and she started up to look round as if feeling guilty of
some lapse of duty.

For a few minutes she suffered from a strange feeling of confusion
accompanied by depression. Then by degrees the incidents of the past
night came clearly to her mind, and she recalled how she had sunk down
by her bed to pray for help and patience, and that the terrible
affliction might be lightened for him she loved, and then all had become
blank.

A few minutes before Mary's face had looked wan and pale, now it was
suffused by a warm glow that was not that of the ruddy early morning
sun. For the hope had risen strongly in her breast that, in spite of
all, the terrible affliction would be lightened, and by her.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

Four days elapsed, and Mrs Ellis noticed a change in her child. Mary
had been more than usually attentive to her father, and James Ellis had
noticed and looked pleased.

"'Tis going off, mother," he said one evening. "Of course it hit very
hard at the time, poor little lass, for she felt very fond of him, I
suppose; but I always said to myself that time would heal the sore
place, and, bless her, it