stic arrangements of her bachelor
brother.

Bessie received no Christmas box which gave her more pleasure than the
following poem, which appeared in _Punch_ on the 29th of December:

A BOX FOR BLINDMAN'S BUFF.

Sit down to eat and drink on this glad day,
And blest be he that first cries, "Hold, enough!"
Gorge, boys, and girls; and then rise up to play.
You _can_. A game in season's Blindman's Buff.

The ready fillet round the seamless brow
Of youth or maiden while quick fingers bind,
Beneath the golden-green pearl-berried bough,
What fun it is to play at being blind!

But some at Blindman's Buff with eyes unbound
Might join, for whom less sport that game would be
Because it is their life's continual round:
The Blindman's Buff of those that cannot see.

If poor, for alms they can but grope about.
But Science to their need assistance lends;
And "knowledge, at one entrance quite shut out,"
Puts veritably at their fingers' ends.

Thus they who else would starve to labour learn.
Does that consideration strike your mind?
Their living do you wish that they should earn,
Instead of crying "Pity the poor Blind?"

Then know there's not a charitable Dun,
Subscription seeking at your gate who knocks,
That more deserves your bounty than the one
Who for the Blind requests a Christmas Box.

At Oxford Street's two-hundred-and-tenth door
Inquire within about the Blind Man's Friend.
Or send your guinea, if you like, or more;
As many more as you can spare to send.

_Punch, 29th December 1866._

In August 1867 Bessie paid her first visit to the Vicar of Heversham.
She writes a "frame" letter from the North to Mrs. Elliot, and sends
warm appreciation of her work in the house, and of the "little
three-cornered things in the pink room." The "nice woman" was probably a
certain Jane Todd, formerly a servant, but at that time settled in a
home of her own. Quite an extraordinary friendship sprang up between her
and Bessie, and to the end of her life Jane Todd daily offered up
special prayers on behalf of her friend the blind lady.

There are again ominous allusions to her difficulty in walking. "I walk
better here," she says; and again, "I can't tell you how much I enjoy
moving more freely."