omised a
house near Paris where the blind soldiers may be educated. When I saw
them they were in temporary quarters in the Hotel de Crillon, lent to
them by the proprietor. They had been gathered from hospitals in
different parts of France by Miss Winifred Holt, who for years has been
working for the blind in her Lighthouse in New York. She is assisted in
the work in Paris by Mrs. Peter Cooper Hewitt. The officers were brought
to the Crillon by French ladies, whose duty it was to guide them through
the streets. Some of them also were their instructors, and in order to
teach them to read and write with their fingers had themselves learned
the Braille alphabet. This requires weeks of very close and patient
study. And no nurse's uniform goes with it. But the reward was great.

It was evident in the alert and eager interest of the men who, perhaps,
only a week before had wished to "curse God, and die." But since then
hope had returned to each of them, and he had found a door open, and a
new life.

And he was facing it with the same or with even a greater courage than
that with which he had led his men into the battle that blinded him.
Some of the officers were modelling in clay, others were learning
typewriting, one with a drawing-board was studying to be an architect,
others were pressing their finger-tips over the raised letters of the
Braille alphabet.

Opposite each officer, on the other side of the table, sat a woman he
could not see. She might be young and beautiful, as many of them were.
She might be white-haired and a great lady bearing an ancient title,
from the faubourg across the bridges, but he heard only a voice.

The voice encouraged his progress, or corrected his mistakes, and a
hand, detached and descending from nowhere, guided his hand, gently, as
one guides the fingers of a child. The officer was again a child. In
life for the second time he was beginning with A, B, and C. The officer
was tall, handsome, and deeply sunburned. In his uniform of a chasseur
d'Afrique he was a splendid figure. On his chest were the medals of the
campaigns in Morocco and Algiers, and the crimson ribbon of the Legion
of Honor. The officer placed his forefinger on a card covered with
raised hieroglyphics.

"N," he announced.

"No," the voice answered him.

"M?" His tone did not carry conviction.

"You are guessing," accused the voice. The officer was greatly confused.

"No, no, mademoiselle!" he protested. "Truly, I th