"Madge, this is my cousin, Malcolm Vernon," said Dorothy. "He was a dear
friend of my childhood and is much beloved by my father. Lady Magdalene
Stanley, cousin," and she placed the girl's soft white hand in mine. There
was a peculiar hesitancy in the girl's manner which puzzled me. She did
not look at me when Dorothy placed her hand in mine, but kept her eyes
cast down, the long, black lashes resting upon the fair curves of her
cheek like a shadow on the snow. She murmured a salutation, and when I
made a remark that called for a response, she lifted her eyes but seemed
not to look at me. Unconsciously I turned my face toward Dorothy, who
closed her eyes and formed with her lips the word "blind."

I retained the girl's hand, and she did not withdraw it. When I caught
Dorothy's unspoken word I led Lady Madge to a chair and asked if I might
sit beside her.

"Certainly," she answered smilingly; "you know I am blind, but I can hear
and speak, and I enjoy having persons I like sit near me that I may touch
them now and then while we talk. If I could only see!" she exclaimed.
Still, there was no tone of complaint in her voice and very little even of
regret. The girl's eyes were of a deep blue and were entirely without scar
or other evidence of blindness, except that they did not seem to see. I
afterward learned that her affliction had come upon her as the result of
illness when she was a child. She was niece to the Earl of Derby, and
Dorothy's mother had been her aunt. She owned a small estate and had lived
at Haddon Hall five or six years because of the love that existed between
her and Dorothy. A strong man instinctively longs to cherish that which
needs his strength, and perhaps it was the girl's helplessness that first
appealed to me. Perhaps it was her rare, peculiar beauty, speaking
eloquently of virtue such as I had never known, that touched me. I cannot
say what the impelling cause was, but this I know: my heart went out in