At this moment he turned and came rapidly toward the door. She
looked straight in his face. There was no mistaking it: he was
blind. The magician who had told her, through his violin, secrets
that she had scarcely dreamed of, the wizard who had set her heart to
throbbing and aching and longing as it had never throbbed and ached
and longed before, the being who had worn a halo of romance and
genius to her simple mind, was stone blind! A wave of impetuous
anguish, as sharp and passionate as any she had ever felt for her own
misfortunes, swept over her soul at the spectacle of the man's
helplessness. His sightless eyes struck her like a blow. But there
was no time to lose. She was directly in his path: if she stood
still he would certainly walk over her, and if she moved he would
hear her, so, on the spur of the moment, she gave a nervous cough and
said, "Good-morning, Mr. Croft."

He stopped short. "Who is it?" he asked.

"I am--it is--I am--your new neighbour," said Lyddy, with a trembling
attempt at cheerfulness.

"Oh, Miss Butterfield! I should have called up to see you before
this if it hadn't been for the boy's sickness. But I am a good-for-
nothing neighbour, as you have doubtless heard. Nobody expects
anything of me."

("Nobody expects anything of me." Her own plaint, uttered in her own
tone!)

"I don't know about that," she answered swiftly. "You've given me,