sister
remembers reading Lord Ingestre's _Meliora_ to her, and the intense
interest she took in the question of bridging over the chasm between the
rich and the poor. It was not a new question to her, this bridging over
a chasm. It was that which, under another aspect, was engrossing so much
of her attention. The discovery of a method, or even the suggestion of
the possibility of such a discovery, would be a sign of hope.

The first ray of light, however, came through a very small chink, and
not at all in heroic form.

During the Great Exhibition of 1851 her parents learnt that a Frenchman
was showing a writing frame of his invention, and that by means of it
the blind could write unaided. The inventor, M. Foucault, was invited to
Queen Anne Street. Bessie learnt to use the frame, and soon found that
it made her independent of supervision and assistance. She could write
and address a letter herself; and here at last she stood in one respect
on an equal footing with those around her.

She used in later years to date from the time she had the Foucault
frame. A medal was awarded to the inventor, but owing to some mistake it
was not sent to him. Bessie was instrumental in procuring and having it
forwarded to a man whom she looked upon as her benefactor.

Her friendship with Miss Isabella Law, which lasted throughout her life,
was inaugurated over the Foucault frame. A correspondence was carried on
between them with regard to it, and Miss Law, blind daughter of the
Vicar of Northrepps, who was preparing a volume of poetry for the press,
found it very helpful, and at the same time found a dear and valued
friend.

Another use which Bessie made of the frame was to write, in 1851, to a
young blind man named William Hanks Levy, of whom she had heard at the
St. John's Wood School for the Blind. He was an assistant teacher there,
and in 1852 married the matron of the girls' school, with whom Mrs.
Gilbert had corresponded in Bessie's childhood, and who had sent
embossed books to Oxford. Levy did all the printing for the St. John's
Wood School, and Bessie wanted an explanation of the Lucas system in use
there. She could read every kind of embossed printing, and when she
heard of any new system, always inquired into it. She knew at this time
the triangular Edinburgh in which the first books she possessed were
printed, Moon, Braille, the American, and several shorthand types. She
could read Roman capitals and the mixed large and sm