intensify the imaginary interest which she felt in him, by provoking him
to speak in her hearing for the first time. In a moment of hysterical
agitation--and in sheer despair of knowing who else to confide in--the
poor, foolish, blind, lonely girl had opened her heart to me. What was I
to do?

If the case had been an ordinary one, the whole affair would have been
simply ridiculous.

But the case of Lucilla was not the case of girls in general.

The minds of the blind are, by cruel necessity, forced inward on
themselves. They live apart from us--ah, how hopelessly far apart!--in
their own dark sphere, of which we know nothing. What relief could come
to Lucilla from the world outside? None! It was part of her desolate
liberty to be free to dwell unremittingly on the ideal creature of her
own dream. Within the narrow limit of the one impression that it had been
possible for her to derive of this man--the impression of the beauty of
his voice--her fancy was left to work unrestrained in the changeless
darkness of her life. What a picture! I shudder as I draw it. Oh, yes, it
is easy, I know, to look at it the other way--to laugh at the folly of a
girl, who first excites her imagination about a total stranger; and then,
when she hears him speak, falls in love with his voice! But add that the
girl is blind; that the girl lives habitually in the world of her own
imagination; that the girl has nobody at home who can exercise a
wholesome influence over her. Is there nothing pitiable in such a state
of things as this? For myself, though I come of a light-hearted nation
that laughs at everything--I saw my own face looking horribly grave and
old, as I sat before the glass that night, brushing my hair.