remember all about the rooms and the furniture there; but with a kind
little brother or sister always at hand to help him he soon became
expert in the town house too, and could run up and down the long
flights of stairs with the nimblest of them. I believe the only
melancholy wish he ever uttered was heard on the first day he reached
the town house. When his Mamma came to see him in the nursery that
evening, she found him kneeling in a chair against one of the
windows--and on going up to him he threw his arms round her neck and
said, "Oh, Mamma, if I could but see the lamplighters!" Do not laugh,
dear readers, if I add that the tears trickled over his cheeks as he
spoke. His mother was much distressed, as she always was when she saw
him thinking of his affliction, but she sat down and said, "Never
mind, dear Roderick, I will tell you all they do to-night." And so she
did, and she made her account so droll, of how the lamplighter ran,
and how he seized his ladder in such a hurry, and all the whole
business, that by the time she got to the end, and said, "and now he
has come to the last lamp-post,--ah, he's up before I can tell you!
and pop! the lamp is lit, and down he runs, and off with his ladder to
the next street--and now the lamps are shining bright all round the
square, and I must go to dinner,"--Roderick was clapping his hands and
laughing as merrily as ever, and he got down from the chair quite
satisfied. Still for a few weeks he used always to get one of the
children to tell him of the lamps lighting, and this was the only sad
little fancy the poor child ever indulged in.

The great town gave him various new amusements. His Parents used every
now and then to take him to some fine conservatory, where flowers are
shown even in winter, and where he could smell various new and rare
ones, and be told all about their beautiful colours. Then sometimes in
the parks and gardens there was a band playing, which was a great
delight. And besides that, they took him occasionally to morning
concerts for an hour or so; for though it is not usual to take
children to those places, he was deprived of so many enjoyments, they
let him have all they could: and especially musical ones, for it is a
very common thing for blind people to become very fond of music, and
Roderick was so, and among other employments learnt to play. I cannot,
however, I am sorry to say, add that the great doctors in the town
were able to do him any good, tho