house-keeper told me about her. Her uncle never
saw her, until his sister, the widow, died—
that's two years since; and he did not trouble
himself about her, after that, until a little
while ago: when he went to see her, and
brought her home, to live with him in the
College."

"Aye?" said the first speaker, "and the
young man?

"We shall know about him by-and-bye,"
said the other. "The young despise the
old, but they can't do without the old. Let
them go their own way. They will not escape
trouble in this life, any more than we."

I did not doubt that I had discovered the
explanation of the mystery, and that it was
the old man's niece whom I had seen: and
yet, I could not account for the fact that he
had never spoken to me about her; and it
seemed to me even still more strange that I
should not have met her more than once, in
the many days that she had been there. I
suspected that the Warden took precautions
to prevent my meeting her, although I could
not tell why. His having ceased to invite me
into the house, and his apparent anger at
meeting me late in the passage, knowing, as
perhaps he did, that she passed there
sometimes, at that hour, confirmed my suspicion.
Nor was the remark of the old blind man,
that he had found a new favourite, sufficient,
to my mind, to explain the sudden abruptness
of his manner towards me. "There is
no doubt," I thought, " that, for some reason,
he fears our coming together."

This conviction kept her constantly in my
mind. A fancy that some foreshadowing of a
closer connexion, inevitably to exist between
us, had visited her protector, awakened
strange sensations in my mind. I revived
again and again the recollection of her pale
face and black hair, and the kind of awe
which I had felt at meeting her alone, and
with her bare head, walking in the twilight
passage, where I had never before met a
stranger.

I became more impatient to see her again,
and thought upon various means by which I
might be able to meet her, without fixing on
any. At last, it came to pass that one evening,
as I was leaving the College, I saw the Warden
standing at his door, who told me, for the first
time, that he had brought a niece to reside
with him, and, bidding me enter, offered to
introduce me to her. I followed him into the
parlour, where I found her at needlework.
She dropped her work as I entered, and arose
to meet me. I knew her again for the person
whom I had met in the passage, although she
seemed less pale than then. I thought that
the old man glanced from me to her, several
times, as he told her who I was. When we
sat down, I felt that he was watching me, and
from the constraint which I experienced, I
spoke little. She talked to me about the
College and its inhabitants, going on with
her work the while, and looking down upon
it: though once or twice she looked up, and
turned upon me the full beauty of her
countenance. I departed at last, and bade her
"good night."

So was I now made sure that it was no
vision that I had seen; though still her
marvellous beauty preserved in me something of
the old wonder that I had felt. More than
ever, did she now become to me the spirit of that
place, to which my instinct had so strangely
brought me in my childhood. I thought, even
at that time, that her presence would not
have moved me so deeply, if I had met her
elsewhere. I knew that I might have seen
her in the street, and looking at her with a
momentary wonder, might have fallen again
into my habitual meditation; for though I
could easily imagine beautiful faces, I could
remember no occasion on which any particular
countenance had deeply impressed me before.

I saw her again, a few days after, in the
College gardens. It was in the morning;
I walked there sometimes in fine weather,
before beginning my duties in the library.
The mist of an autumn morning had passed
with a few heat-drops, and the air under the
trees was still and warm. I was about to
turn back, and go into the library, when
I heard her voice. She came through the
archway, and walked down a side path
slowly, beside one of the blind people. I
recognised her companion for the man whom I
had heard under the window of the library,
talking with his surly friend. I saw her
gather some peaches for him from the wall,
and could hear them conversing, though I
could not distinguish what they said. When
the old man left her, I walked round, and
bade her " good morning."

"I came down here with the old blind man,"
said she. " Poor fellow! he tells me he would
not regret his blindness, if he were not getting
deaf."

"It is well," I replied, " that sometimes
the afflicted know not the extent of their
misfortune."

"Yet, they tell me the blind are
sometimes very happy."

"I do not think," said I, " that a man can
be happy, having once known the light, to be
shut out from it for ever. I cannot tell what
beauty the mind has in itself, alone, nor how
great a pleasure it may derive, in the cases of
those born blind, from self-contemplation, or
from such faint intimations of the world as are
brought to it through the dark senses."

"They are very fanciful. Yonder poor old
man thought that I had heard him call to me
in the hall, and that I would not speak to
him. I led him down here to take a walk in
the garden, and make my peace with him.
I own I was timid until I became more used
to the blind men—they moved about so
silently, and I came upon them so often,
unawares, in parts of this beautiful place.
But I forget, sir, that to you it may wear a
different aspect; now to me, who came to it,