toward the door. She looked
straight in his face. There was no mistaking it: he was blind. The
magician who had told her through his violin secrets that she had
scarcely dreamed of, the wizard who had set her heart to throbbing and
aching and longing as it had never throbbed and ached and longed before,
the being who had worn a halo of romance and genius to her simple mind,
was stone-blind! A wave of impetuous anguish, as sharp and passionate
as any she had ever felt for her own misfortunes, swept over her soul at
the spectacle of the man's helplessness. His sightless eyes struck her
like a blow. But there was no time to lose. She was directly in his
path: if she stood still he would certainly walk over her, and if she
moved he would hear her, so, on the spur of the moment, she gave a
nervous cough and said, "Good-morning, Mr. Croft."

He stopped short. "Who is it?" he asked.

"I am--it is--I am--your new neighbor," said Lyddy, with a trembling
attempt at cheerfulness.

"Oh, Miss Butterfield! I should have called up to see you before this
if it hadn't been for the boy's sickness. But I am a good-for-nothing
neighbor, as you have doubtless heard. Nobody expects anything of me."

("Nobody expects anything of me." Her own plaint, uttered in her own
tone!)

"I don't know about that," she answered swiftly. "You've given me, for
one, a great deal of pleasure with your wonderful music. I often hear
you as you play after supper, and it has kept me from being lonesome.
That isn't very much, to be sure."

"You are fond of music, then?"

"I didn't know I was; I never heard any before," said Lyddy simply; "but
it seems to help people to say things they couldn't say for themselves,
don't you think so? It comforts me even to hear it, and I think it must
be still more beautiful to make it."

Now, Lyddy Ann Butterfield had no sooner uttered this commonplace speech
than the reflection darted through her mind like a lightning flash that
she had never spoken a bit of her heart out like this in all her life
before. The reason came to her in the same flash: she was not being
looked at; her disfigured face was hidden. This man, at least, could
not shrink, turn away, shiver, affect indifference, fix his eyes on
hers with a fascinated horror, as others had done. Her heart was divided
between a great throb of pity and sympathy for him and an irresistible
sense of gratitude for herself. Sure of protection and comprehension,
her lovely