"What difference between one room and another can there be to me? That
is the best apartment to my choice in which the human voice sounds most
kindly."

The arrangement was made, and St. Amand came now to reside beneath the
same roof as Lucille. And was she not happy that _he_ wanted so constant
an attendance; was she not happy that she was ever of use? St. Amand was
passionately fond of music; he played himself with a skill that was only
surpassed by the exquisite melody of his voice, and was not Lucille happy
when she sat mute and listening to such sounds as in Malines were never
heard before? Was she not happy in gazing on a face to whose melancholy
aspect her voice instantly summoned the smile? Was she not happy when
the music ceased, and St. Amand called "Lucille"? Did not her own name
uttered by that voice seem to her even sweeter than the music? Was she
not happy when they walked out in the still evenings of summer, and her
arm thrilled beneath the light touch of one to whom she was so necessary?
Was she not proud in her happiness, and was there not something like
worship in the gratitude she felt to him for raising her humble spirit to
the luxury of feeling herself beloved?

St. Amand's parents were French. They had resided in the neighbourhood
of Amiens, where they had inherited a competent property, to which he had
succeeded about two years previous to the date of my story.

He had been blind from the age of three years. "I know not," said he, as
he related these particulars to Lucille one evening when they were
alone,--"I know not what the earth may be like, or the heaven, or the
rivers whose voice at least I can hear, for I have no recollection beyond
that of a confused but delicious blending of a thousand glorious colours,
a bright and quick sense of joy, A VISIBLE MUSIC. But it is only since