about both the widow and her son which
invariably rendered them acceptable guests;
for their intellectual resources, and powers
of conversation, were equally diversified
and uncommon. Mrs. Owen had studied
much in order to teach her son, and thus, by
improving her natural abilities, had become a
person of no common stamp; her intellectuality,
however, being always subservient to, and fitly
shadowed by, the superior feminine attributes
of love, gentleness, and sympathy; for Heaven
help the woman in whom these gifts are not
predominant over any mental endowments
whatsoever!

When they walked out together his mother
took his arm; he was proud of that, he liked
to fancy he was some support to her, and
many pitying eyes used latterly to follow the
figure of the widow in the black dress she
constantly wore, and the tall pale son on
whom she leaned confidingly, as if striving
with a sweet deception to convince him that
he was indeed the staff of her declining
strength. But gradually the mother's form
grew bent, her step dragged wearily along,
and the expression of her face indicated
increasing weakness. The walks were at an
end; and, before long she was too feeble
to leave her bed, excepting to be carried
to a summer parlour, where she lay upon a
sofa beside an open window, with flowers
twining around the casement, and the
warm sunshine filling all things with joy,
save her foreboding heart and the anxious
son who incessantly hung over her. Friends
often came to visit them, and turned away
with a deep sadness as they noted the
progress of her malady, and heard the blind man
ask each time whether they did not think
her better—oh surely a little better than
when they had last beheld her?

Among all these, no friend was so welcome
or brought such solace to the sick room
as Mary Parker, a joyous girl of nineteen,
one of the beauties of the county, and the
admiration and delight of all who knew
her. Mrs. Owen had danced Mary upon
her knee, and Edward used to weave
baskets and make garlands for her when
he was a boy of twelve, and she, a little
fairy of six years old or thereabouts, stood
beside him, praising his skill, and wondering
how he could manage so cleverly though
blind. None of his childish companions ever
led him so carefully as Mary, or seemed so
much impressed with his mental superiority;
she would leave those games of her playmates
in which his blindness prevented him from
joining, and would listen for hours to the
stories with which his memory was well
stored, or which his own imagination enabled
him to invent.

As she grew up, there was no change in the
frank and confiding nature of their
intercourse. Mary still made him the recipient of
her girlish secrets, and plans, and dreams,
just as she had done of her little griefs and
joys in childhood; asked him to quote his
favourite passages of poetry, or stationed
herself near him at the piano, suggesting subjects
for him to play, which he extemporised at
her bidding. Bright and blooming as Mary
was, the life of every party, beaming with
animation and enjoyment, no attention was
capable of rendering her unmindful of him;
and she was often known to sit out several
dances in an evening to talk to dear Edward
Owen, who would be sad if he thought
himself neglected.

And now she daily visited the invalid:
her buoyant spirits tempered by sympathy
for her increasing sufferings; but still diffusing
such an atmosphere of sunshine and hope
around her, that gloom and despondency
seemed to vanish at her presence. Edward's
sightless eyes were always raised to her
bright face, as if he felt the magic influence
it imparted.

His mother had noted all this, with a
mother's watchfulness; and, on that day, when
strong in her love, she had undertaken to
break to him the fact which all others shrank
from communicating, she spoke likewise of
Mary, and of the vague wild hope she had
always cherished of one day seeing her his wife.

"No, mother, no!" exclaimed the blind
man. "Dearest mother, in this you are not
true to yourself! What! Would you wish
to see her in all her spring-time of youth and
beauty sacrificed to such a one as I!—to see
Mary, as you have described her to me, as
my soul tells me she is, tied down to be the
guide, and leader, and support, of one who
could not make one step in her defence;
whose helplessness alone in the eyes of men,
would be his means of sheltering and
protecting her! Would you hear her pitied,—our
bright Mary pitied—as a Blind Man's Wife,
mother!"

"But Edward—if she loves you, as I am
sure she does—"

"Love me, mother! Yes, as angels love
mortals, as a sister loves a brother, as you
love me! And for this benignant love, this
tender sympathy, I could kneel and kiss the
ground she treads upon; but, beyond this—
were you to entreat her to marry your blind
and solitary son, and she in pity answered
Yes,—would I accept her on such terms, and
rivet the chains she had consented to assume?
Oh mother, mother, I have not studied you
in vain, your life has been one long self
sacrifice to me; its silent teaching shall bear
fruit! Do not grieve so bitterly for me.
God was very merciful in giving me such a
mother; let us trust Him for the future!"

Ah, poor tortured heart, speaking so
bravely forth, striving to cheer the mother's
failing spirit, when all to him was dark, dark,
dark!

She raised herself upon her pillow, and
wound her weak arms about his neck, and
listened to the expressions of ineffable love,
and faith and consolation, which her son