"It is all indistinct," he exclaimed; and sank
back in his arm-chair with a groan. "I shall
never see you again, my daughters."

His grey head fell upon my shoulder, and he
sobbed as men sob who are unused to weep.
The iron hand of trouble had opened the long-
sealed fountain where Time had treasured up
his tears, and they flowed slowly from his sightless
eyes down his face. I could have wept too—
wept passionately and rebelliously, but for his
sake; but, forcing myself into calmness and
strength, I soothed him with fond filial words,
such as my lips had rarely uttered.

"We will be eyes to you," I said, when
he was quieter; "you shall never feel lonely
and in darkness; for nothing shall escape
observation. What we never noticed before, we
shall see now for your sake, and we will coin
words to describe things to you. Ettie will
always be ready to read to you; and we will lead
you to all your favourite walks. You shall be
so tended that we shall cheat you into the belief
that you are not blind."

My father raised his head with a sigh of
exhaustion, and, in a melancholy tone, quoted the
lines,

"Oh, dark, dark, dark, amid the blaze of noon,
Irrecoverably dark, total eclipse,
Without all hope of day!"

"Think how richly you have stored your
mind," I continued; "what precious memories
you have to recal. And, more than that, you
will constantly see us in your sleep; you
remember what Pascal says: 'If we dreamed the
same thing every night, it would probably affect
us as much as the objects that we see every day:
if an artisan were sure of dreaming he is a king
for twelve hours each day, I believe that he
would be nearly as happy as a king who should
dream for the same length of time that he is an
artisan.' Only to the outer world you will be
dark; you will see us always, and always without
change."

"You are a philosophical comforter, Mary,"
he said, with a sad smile.

"That is only one source of comfort, and not
the highest," I answered; but I hurried from the
room, to give way to the anguish of my heart.

Anna heard the sorrowful tidings with the
quiet grief of one long used to the trials of life;
but Ettie's undisciplined spirit raged and
tormented itself with vague and passionate lamentings.
I would not suffer them to go to my
father in the first outburst of dismay, and when
we rejoined him, he was himself gravely calm,
and received us with an effort to show that his
deprivation did not weigh heavily upon him. He
assigned to us the various posts we should take
in alleviating his blindness, and spoke cheerfully
of the benefit it would be to Ettie to become his
reader. But, while my two sisters and he were
conversing of what could be done to continue his
favourite studies, I was looking anxiously into
the future, to see what changes would be effected
in our circumstances. In a few days we wrote to
inform Mr. Jermyn, the post-office surveyor of our
district, of my father's misfortune, and he
immediately came over to see him. He was a keen,
official-looking gentleman, ready in a moment to
detect an imposition or an error; but kind and
sympathising in his manner to my father when he
discovered the full extent of his loss. He had
not held his present post many months, and was
anxious to reduce the expenditure of his district
wherever he could do so without detriment to
the public convenience. A little extra work had
been put on here and there in various departments
without extra pay, small innovations had
been diligently suppressed, and he was gaining
the character of a zealous official. But
my father's case perplexed him: he had
been postmaster of Tonwell for nearly forty
years, and had grown old and blind in the
service, yet had never received such a salary as
would justify the expectation that out of it he
would provide for his own old age; had he been a
metropolitan official there would have been no
difficulty about him, he might have been placed
upon the list of pensioners and dismissed to
retirement; but no provision existed at that time
for the civil servants of the crown employed in
provincial post-offices, and those who were
incapacitated for the proper performance of their
duties as postmasters, clerks, letter-carriers, or
rural messengers, were consigned to poverty
and dependence. Mr. Jermyn was very much
perplexed.

"You have had 130l. a year for the last four
years," he said, rather sharply, " and 90l. before
that have you made no provision out of it?"

"My father has had a family to support and
educate," I replied, interrupting my father, who
was going to answer his superior meekly.

"Well, I suppose your father's salary was
not enough to enable him to save out of it, but
he was not entirely dependent upon it."

"Trade has been very bad in Tonwell," said
my father, "and my business was one of the first
to suffer."

"I do not see that it is a question of
business," I added; "you might have made a fortune
by trade, or you might not; what I wish to know,
Mr. Jermyn, is this: were my father's services
and responsibility more than adequately paid by
each year's salary?"

"They were not," he replied.

"Were they less than other crown servants in
London, Edinburgh, and Dublin, who receive
pensions?" I continued.

"Certainly not," he again replied.

"Yet he is altogether excluded from the
provisions of every Superannuation Bill" I said,
warmly. "He has served the public well for
thirty-eight years, till he can serve no longer,
and now what do you intend to do with him?"

Mr. Jermyn hesitated, it was an awkward
case.

"We must in some measure consult the
wishes of the public," he said. "I have already
had a letter from the banker of this town,
complaining that it is unsuitable and unbusinesslike
for a post-office of such size and importance as
this to have only women about it, and there is
some reason in what he says; abuses are liable