Darkness and Daylight | Page 9

baby's life, and how she would pity him if she knew it
made him blind. I wonder where she is. She must be most as big as I

am now;" and if it were possible Edith's eyes grew brighter than their
wont as she thought how had SHE been that Swedish child, she would
go straight up to Collingwood and be the blind man's slave. She would
read to him. She would see for him, and when he walked, she would
lead him so carefully, removing all the ugly pegs from his boots, and
watching to see that he did not stub his toes, as she was always doing in
her headlong haste. "What a great good man he is," she kept repeating,
while at the same time she felt an undefinable interest in the Swedish
child, whom at that very moment, Grace Atherton was cursing in her
heart as the cause of Richard's misfortune.
Kitty was gone at last, and glad to be alone she wept passionately over
this desolation of her hopes, wishing often that the baby had perished in
the river ere it had wrought a work so sad. How she hated that Swedish
mother and her child--how she hated all children then, even the black
haired Edith, out in the autumn sunshine, singing to herself a
long-forgotten strain, which had come back to her that morning, laden
with perfume from the vine- clad hills of Bingen, and with music from
the Rhine. Softly the full, rich melody came stealing through the open
window, and Grace Atherton as she listened to the mournful cadence
felt her heart growing less hard and bitter toward fate, toward the world,
and toward the innocent Swedish babe. Then as she remembered that
Richard kissed the flowers, a flush mounted to her brow. He did love
her yet; through all the dreary years of their separation he had clung to
her, and would it not atone for her former selfishness, if now that the
world was dark to him, she should give herself to the task of cheering
the deep darkness? It would be happiness, she thought, to be pointed
out as the devoted wife of the blind man, far greater happiness to bask
in the sunlight of the blind man's love, for Grace Atherton did love him,
and in the might of her love she resolved upon doing that from which
she would have shrunk had he not been as helpless and afflicted as he
was. Edith should be the medium between them. Edith should take him
flowers every day, until he signified a wish for her to come herself,
when she would go, and sitting by his side, would tell him, perhaps,
how sad her life had been since that choice of hers made on the shore of
the deep sea. Then, if he asked her again to share his lonely lot, she
would gladly lay her head upon his bosom, and whisper back the word

she should have said to him seven years ago.
It was a pleasant picture of the future which Grace Atherton drew as
she lay watching the white clouds come and go over the distant tree
tops of Collingwood, and listening to the song of Edith, still playing in
the sunshine, and when at dinner time she failed to appear at the ringing
of the bell, and Edith was sent in quest of her, she found her sleeping
quietly, dreaming of the Swedish babe and Richard Harrington.
CHAPTER IV.
RICHARD AND EDITH.
On Richard's darkened pathway, there WAS now a glimmer of daylight,
shed by Edith Hastings' visit, and with a vague hope that she might
come again, he on the morrow groped his way to the summer house,
and taking the seat where he sat the previous day, he waited and
listened for the footstep on the grass which should tell him she was
near. Nor did he wait long ere Edith came tripping down the walk,
bringing the bouquet which Grace had prepared with so much care.
"Hist!" dropped involuntarily from her lips, when she descried him,
sitting just where she had, without knowing why, expected she should
find him, and her footfall so light that none save the blind could have
detected it.
To Richard there was something half amusing, half ridiculous in the
conduct of the capricious child, and for the sake of knowing what she
would do, he professed to be ignorant of her presence, and leaning back
against the lattice, pretended to be asleep, while Edith came so near that
he could hear her low breathing as she stood still to watch him. Nothing
could please her more than his present attitude, for with his large bright
eyes shut she dared to look at him as much and as long she