Are married just like sordid souls;
With osiers for a bend.

To her I am indebted for many a dark and tearful hour, when not only my
heart, but my eyes, needed perfect repose.

But beside this thorn-tree in the home garden bloomed for me, and for all,
a beautiful flower, in the person of her niece, Josie McMath, who, with
her loving, gentle touch, toned down the inequalities and smiled away the
frowns.

She and I became fast friends, and afterward freely exchanged confidences,
telling to each other a mutual tale of girlish hope and trustful
affection.

During my stay in Ypsilanti I received a letter from Rachel Weaver, who
had been bereft of her mother and had lost every means of support. She
earnestly desired to return to me; and as the letter brought with it the
magnetism of a former attachment, I wrote to her to come to me.

Finding the prospect of recovery through my present treatment hopeless, I
went to Ionia, Michigan, repairing to the house of Dr. Baird, where I
awaited tidings of Rachel Weaver, and whom I met at Detroit, when we
returned to Chicago, where I was met by Mr. Arms, and who, soon as an
opportunity offered, rehearsed to me the workings of his own mind during
my absence.

He told me he had been seriously thinking over the matter, and after
carefully reviewing his own feelings he could arrive at but one
conclusion, viz, that I had become necessary to his happiness, and that he
hoped for a mutual plan for speedy union.

He owned a farm in Iowa, which he proposed to sell, and invest the
proceeds in a home in Chicago.

He also begged a promise that I would never make another attempt to
recover my sight, which gave me an assurance that my blindness was no
barrier to his love.

With a strange flutter of emotion my heart responded to his sweet
assurances, and, as a weary child confidingly rests upon its mother's
breast, so did my tired soul trustingly repose in the safe haven of his
manly love, and cast its anchor there! safe amid the lowering clouds of
life, serene amid its surging seas and wildest waves; for arching all was
the Iris of bright-hued hope.

CHAPTER XI.

"Visions come and go;
Shapes of resplendent beauty round me throng;
From angels' lips I seem to hear the flow
Of soft and holy song."

"'Tis nothing now--
When heaven is opening on my sightless eyes,
When airs from paradise refresh my brow,
That earth in darkness lies."

L