When, then, at the close of the October
day, Lyttleton came in to begin his weary
night's round; there was a strange surprise
waiting him. The poor man's candle, which
he would have sought presently to light, was
gone, and there was a tall, bright, French
lamp, shining radiantly. Great miracle this
that quite dazed him with wonder and
almost alarm. This fearful extravagance
should Martha Daxe come to know it! But,
in real earnest, how had the quiet child
contrived it? She, whose income was not
altogether three farthings per annum? Perhaps
she had begged or borrowed, perhaps sold;
perhaps—but such things should not be
lightly spoken—she had been prying curiously
among the nooks and pigeon-holes, and
queer cabinets in old Martha Daxe's room. O
the neighbours! how they talked and
whispered concerning the sackfulls left by old
Daxe; all stowed away in strange crannies.
Greater surprise still for the overworked, when
the genial light shows him the abstracts in
female hand, so neatly tied up on the desk,
correctly done too, and of real assistance.

Some one at the door hears him muttering
to himself in astonishment, and enters softly,
just as he says aloud, "Gentle Conalore,
after all—her work!"

"Pah!" impatiently answers Prue, "never
before so wrong! She is a great lady; too
lofty to think of helping or leading about
poor blind men!"

"True, true," he said, "I should have
thought of that. And was it you, dearest
Prue, that did all this?"

"Who else? not Grandaunt Daxe, certainly;
no, nor Ben Alibone. Show me more
to do. I will be your clerk."

"Dear, dearest child," he said, "what
infinite goodness, charity rather! O you
could help me so!"

From that out she did help him wonderfully;
but still his eyesight ebbed away
slowly and surely. It came at last to this,
that he could not so much as look at paper of
nights. No profit, therefore, in the French
lamp. But the quiet child held by him,
steadily working for him, while Conalore
looked on scornfully, for the pair had
conceived justly of her. And yet the scent of
those country days was not gone—nay, was
stronger rather.

Says Prue one night, looking up from a
huge deed: "Do you like me as well as
Conalore, Cousin Lyttleton?"

"What of Conalore!" he said, absently.
"I scarcely see her at all now. I am too
mean a soul for her to think of——"

"Do you like me as well?" Prue asked
again; but could get no better answer from him.
Minx Conalore was, all the while, secretly
thinking what great things she was made for,
if she could only get loose upon the
world. Blind wigmen were not her game.

But our poor blind wigman, for all the
help he was getting, was only turning
blinder every hour. Daylight work even,
was no ease to him. It was a case of
such tremendous proportions: a Leviathan,
enough to swallow the brains of ten strong
men. So it was, every day, proving more
and more too much for him.

The threadbare gentlemen came now and
again to him, and found business backward.
The solicitor in the matter came, too, and
said that, at this rate of pottering, they
would be twenty years over it. Still he held
on contending desperately with optic nerve
and retina. Which pair were destined to
have it their own way, as they always must.
One year's rigid forbearance from all written
and printed paper, would be only basis for a
cure. Fretfully, chafingly he took the trial;
at times bursting into fits of storm and fury
quite strange to his quiet nature, startling
that volunteer clerk of his, who sat working
with him to the last.

Clerk Prue, not reckoning on this odd
mood, says, looking up at him, "Do I work
enough, Cousin. Drive me on faster, if you
will."

"Small profit," he answered, bitterly, "were
you to work those willing fingers to the
bone!"

"Courage, friend," she said, cheerfully,
"we must work through it. We shall coin a
portion for your wife out of Whichelo's
trusts!"

He laughed.

"Most idle talk," he said, almost rudely,
"Why do you say such things? Who would
think of the blind? They have all the same
souls as our stately mistress, up-stairs. But I
can tell you, Prue, for all that, she might not
get the blind back to her again, not if she
went on her knees. Don't you know," he
went on with kindling eyes, "don't you know
that if I had coffers, and sacks of money, and
jewels—some of those black oak coffers that
we know of—and came freighted with these,
it would be a very different tune?"

"This is intolerable," clerk Prue said,
flinging down her pen, "I'll write no more
for you. Your head is always running on
Conalore, and I tell you she despises you.
Now find out who really loves you!"

"You, I suppose," he says with a sneer,
"you want wages for your work!"

"A generous taunt," the quiet child
answers, trembling with rage, "now that you
have no further use for me. Finish all as you
may, now. I have done with you!"

"Forgive me! forgive me, dearest Prue!"
he said, stopping her. "But my heart is
sore. I am as fretful as a child:" and with
that she stayed and took up her pen readily
enough. But it came to the one finale
nevertheless. Retina and optic nerve
were to win easily. The overworked must
lay down his arms. With tribulation,
with inexpressible woe of soul, with
a sickness on him like that of death, poor
wigman gives in. And so, one of those