Four Phases of Love

ng herself in the cool breeze that swept across her hot cheeks; her delicate, half-developed form trembled, her cold little han

old--only, perhaps, a year older than the girl. Whoever had heard and seen him, now throwing up his large eyes, and now turning his

a religious hymn, which he seemed to h

said, turning his

sigh? I only shrank together a

I did not hear it as I played?--and I

has grown

is what makes you so afraid; and yet he said how soon it would all be over, and that it would only be like the prick of a pin. And you, who used to be so brave and patient, that my mother always menti

e baron sent for came down from the castle to your father, and mother called us out of the garden--ever since that hour something weighs upon me and will not go away. You were so full of joy that you did not perc

izzing tones, peculiar to the instrument on which he played, rang the distant songs of home-returning p

not be a gain after all? Until it was promised me I never asked much about it. We are blind, they say; I never understood what was wanting in us. When we sat without there by the wood, and travellers came by, and said, 'Poor children!' I felt angry, and thought, 'Wha

ked to be as happy all my life. It will all be different now! Have you never hear

anything great could see. And then I often plagued myself all day long with thoughts about it. Then when I played on the spinet, or was allowed to play on the organ, in your father's place, I forgot my uneasiness for a time; but when it came back, I thought, 'Must you always play the organ, and go the few hundred paces up and down the

t me, C

mplainingly and

onsense--I cannot bear it! Do you think that I would leave you al

and go into the woods with each other, and mock the girls when they meet them. Till now they have left you and me together, and we played and learned with each other. You were blind like me--what did you want with the other boys? But

entreatingly, "You must not cry! I will never go away from you! never! never! rather than do that I will remain blind and forget everything. I will not leave

s mother called to him from the neighbouring parsonage-house. He led the still weep

ow. They had both been invited by the baron to spend the afternoon with himself and the doctor, who had come from the town, at his invitation, to examine the children's eyes, and to try the effects of an operation. He had again assured both the rejoicing fathers of his hopes of a perfect cure, an

ill--the maid was without in the garden. He entered his chamber and rejoiced in the stillness which permitted him to be alone with his God. As he stepped over the threshold, he started--his child had arisen from the chair and pressed her handkerc