Cousin Maude

The writing was tremulous and uncertain, but it brought hope to the heart of the brother, who had

never really believed it possible for his sister to be blind. Very

restless he seemed on the day when she was expected; and when, just

as the sun was setting, the carriage drove to the gate, a faint

sickness crept over him, and wheeling his chair to the window of her

room he looked anxiously at her, as with John's assistance, she

alighted from the carriage.

"If she walks alone I shall know she is not very blind," he said,

and with clasped hands he watched her intently as she came slowly

toward the house with Nellie a little in advance.

Nearer and nearer she came--closer and closer the burning forehead

was pressed against the window pane, and hope beat high in Louis'

heart, when suddenly she turned aside--her foot rested on the

withered violets which grew outside the walk, and her hand groped in

the empty air.

"She's blind--she's blind," said Louis, and with a moaning cry he

laid his head upon the broad arm of his chair, sobbing most

bitterly.

Meantime below there was a strange interview between the new mother

and her children, Maude Glendower clasping her namesake in her arms

and weeping over her as she had never wept before but once, and that

when the moonlight shone upon her sitting by a distant grave.

Pushing back the clustering curls, she kissed the open brow and

looked into the soft black eyes with a burning gaze which penetrated

the shadowy darkness and brought a flush to the cheek of the young

girl.

"Maude Remington! Maude Remington!" she said, dwelling long upon the

latter name, "the sight of you affects me painfully; you are so like

one I have lost. I shall love you, Maude Remington, for the sake of

the dead, and you, too, must love me, and call me mother--will you?"

and her lips again touched those of the astonished maiden.

Though fading fast, the light was not yet quenched in Maude's eyes,

and very wistfully she scanned the face of the speaker, while her

hands moved caressingly over each feature, as she said, "I will love

you, beautiful lady, though you can never be to me what my gentle

mother was."

At the sound of that voice Maude Glendower started suddenly, and

turning aside, so her words could not be heard, she murmured sadly,

"Both father and child prefer her to me." Then, recollecting

herself, she offered her hand to the wondering Nellie, saying, "Your

Sister's misfortune must be my excuse for devoting so much time to

her, when you, as my eldest daughter, were entitled to my first

attention."