ce did not often laugh aloud, but
when she did, her laugh was the most joyous, ringing, childish burst of
silvery music that ever gushed from the fountain of youth. It was
impossible not to echo it. Helen feared that Miss Thusa would be
offended, especially as Louis joined merrily in the chorus--and she
looked at Alice as if her glance had power to check her. But she did not
know all the windings of Miss Thusa's heart. Any one like Alice, marked
by the Almighty, by some peculiar misfortune, was an object not only of
tenderness, but of reverence in her eyes. The blasted tree, the blighted
flower, the smitten lamb--all touched by the finger of God, were sacred
things--and so were blindness and deafness--and any personal calamity.
It was strange, but it was only in the shadows of existence she felt the
presence of the Deity.

"Never mind her laughing," said she, in answer to the apprehensive
glance of Helen, "it don't hurt me. It does me good to hear her. It
sounds like a singing bird in a cage; and, poor thing, she's shut in a
dark cage for life."

"No, not for life, Miss Thusa," exclaimed Louis; "I intend to study
optics till I have mastered the whole length and breadth of the science,
on purpose to unseal those eyes of blue."

Alice turned round so suddenly, and following the sound of his voice,
fixed upon him so eagerly those blue eyes, the effect was startling.

"Will you do so?" she cried, "can you do so? oh! do not say it, unless
you mean it. But I know it is impossible," she added in a subdued tone,
"for I was _born blind_. God made me so, and He has made me very happy
too. I sometimes think it would be beautiful to see, but it is beautiful
to feel. As brother says, there is an inner-light which keeps us from
being _all_ dark."

Louis regretted the impulse which urged him to utter his secret wishes.
He resolved to be more guarded in future, but he was already in
imagination a student in Germany, under some celebrated optician, making
discoveries so amazing that he would undoubtedly give a new name to the
age in which he lived.

When night came on they gathered round Miss Thusa, entreating her for a
farewell legend, not a gloomy one, not one which would give Alice a sad,
dark impression, but something that would come to her memory like a ray
of light.

"You must let me have my own way," said she, putting her spectacles on
the top of her head, and looking around her with remarkable benignity.
"If the spirit