And so it has gone on ever since. I wake wretched every morning. I am crowded with wretched, if not wicked thoughts, all day. Nothing seems worth anything. I don’t care for anything.”

“But you love somebody?”

“I hope I love my father. I don’t know. I don’t feel as if I did.”

“And there’s your cousin Percy.” I confess this was a feeler I put out.

“Percy’s a fool!” she said, with some show of indignation, which I hailed, for more reasons than one.

“But you enjoyed the sermon this morning, did you not?”

“I don’t know. I thought it very poetical and very pretty; but whether it was true-how could I tell? I didn’t care. The baby he spoke about was nothing to me.

I didn’t love him, or want to hear about him. Don’t you think me a brute, uncle?”

“No, I don’t. I think you are ill. And I think we shall find something that will do you good; but I can’t tell yet what. You will dine with us, won’t you?”

“Oh! yes, if you and papa wish it.”

“Of course we do. He is just gone to ask Mr. and Mrs. Bloomfield to dine with us.”

“Oh!”

“You don’t mind, do you?”

“Oh! no. They are nice people. I like them both.”

“Well, I will leave you, my child. Sleep if you can. I will go and walk in the garden, and think what can be done for my little girl.”

“Thank you, uncle. But you can’t do me any good. What if this should be the true way of things? It is better to know it, if it is.”

“Disease couldn’t make a sun in the heavens. But it could make a man blind, that he could not see it.”

“I don’t understand you.”

“Never mind. It’s of no consequence whether you do or not. When you see light again, you will believe in it. For light compels faith.”

“I believe in you, uncle; I do.”

“Thank you, my dear. Good-bye.”

I went round by the stables, and there found the colonel, talking to his groom.

He had returned already from his call, and the Bloomfields were coming. I met Percy next, sauntering about, with a huge cigar in his mouth.

“The Bloomfields are coming to dinner, Mr. Percy,” I said.

“Who are they?”

“The schoolmaster and his wife.”

“Just like that precious old uncle of mine! Why the deuce did he ask me this Christmas? I tell you what, Mr. Smith-I can’t stand it.