sullen despair, 'Let them die, the children, since I am never to see again! There is a singular power in the tones of the human voice. I dropped my money again into my purse; I was ashamed to offer this chance aid; I felt that it was necessary to give more than a mere alms; that money could not restore contentment to that hearth. I returned home with my resolution fixed."

"But what could you do for them?" asked his young friend.

"What could I do?" replied M. Desgranges; "what could I do? Fifteen days after that interview, Jacques was saved; in a year he was in a way of earning his own support; and now he sings at his work."

-

"But how was this done?" "How? By a means very natural: by but stay, I think I hear him coming; yes, it is he. I will leave him to tell you himself his simple history. It will touch you more from his lips; it will embarrass me less, and his earnest and cordial manner will complete the effect of the narration."

A noise was heard without, of some one drawing off his sabots at the door, and presently a light knock was heard. "Come in, Jacques."

He entered with his wife.

"I have brought Julienne this time, dear M. Desgranges; the poor woman is so happy to see you again for a little while."

"It is very well, Jacques: sit down."

He advanced, feeling before him with his stick, so that he should not run against any of the chairs, and having found one, seated himself. He was young, and of a slight figure, but strongly made. His dark hair curled over an open and expansive forehead. His features were prepossessing, and animated by a cheerful expression, particularly when he showed his white teeth in smiling. His wife remained standing just behind him.

"Jacques," said M. Desgranges; "here is one of my good friends who wished much to see you."

"He is an excellent person since he is your friend."

"You must talk with him while I go to see my geraniums; but you must not be sad; remember, I have forbidden that."

"No, no! my dear friend !”

By his good words, Monsieur! Yes! he, a person so excellent and honorable, he came every day to my poor hovel; he sat down on my bench and talked with me, for an hour, two hours, that he might make me happy."

What did he say to you?"

"I cannot tell; I am but a stupid fellow; and you must ask him to repeat what he said; but it was all about things I had never heard of before. He spoke to me of the good God better than a priest. It was he who taught me how to sleep again!" "How was that?"

"I had not had a night's sleep for two months, for whenever I began to doze, I would awake, saying to myself,

Jacques, thou art blind!" and then my head would whirl and whirl like a madman's; and that was killing me. One morning he came in-that dear friendand said to me: Jacques, do you believe in God? Well, to-night, when you strive in vain to sleep, and the idea of your misfortune takes hold of your mind, repeat a prayer aloud, then two, or three, and you shall see that you will go to sleep." "

"Yes!" said his wife, with her calm voice; "the good God then gave him sleep."

"That is not all, Monsieur! I was going to kill myself! I said, ‘Jacques, thou art useless to thy family; thou art a burden; a sick woman in the house! But he said, 'Is it not you who still support your family? Had you not been blind, would any one have given them five hundred francs?'

"That is true, M. Desgranges.'
"If you had not been blind, would

any one have taken care of your children?'

"True, Monsieur !'

"If you had not been blind, would you have been loved so much as you are?'

"True, Monsieur, it is true!'

"Observe, Jacques, every family has to bear some misfortune. Disaster is like the rain; something of it must fall on every head. If you were not blind, your wife would, perhaps, be an invalid, or you would lose one of your children; in place of that, it is you, my poor friend, who have all the suffering; they are spared.'.

"True, true!' and I began to feel less depressed; I felt happy to suffer for them. Afterwards he said, 'My dear Jacques, misfortune is man's greatest enemy or his best friend. There are persons whom it renders wicked; there are others whom it makes better. I wish it would cause you to love everybody; to be so kind, so grateful, so affectionate, that when people are talking of the good, they may say, "As good as the poor blind man of Noisemont. That will serve as a portion to your daughter.' ." Thus he gave me courage to be unhappy."

"Yes! but when he was not with you?"

"Ah! when he was not there, I had, indeed, very gloomy moments; I thought of my eyes, and of the blessing of sight. Ah!" Jacques continued mournfully, "if God should permit me ever to see again, I would never lose a moment of the precious daylight!"

"Jacques, Jacques!" said his wife. "You are right, Julienne! He has forbidden me to be sorrowful. He always observed it, Monsieur. Would you believe, whenever my head has been bad during the night, and he comes in the morning, at the first glance he always says, 'Jacques, you have been thinking of that;' and then he scolds me, that dear friend that he is." "Yes," added the blind man, with a smile," and I like to hear him, for he cannot speak harshly even if he would." "And how came you to think of making yourself a water-carrier?"

"It was he who thought of it. How should I have any ideas? I was cured of my great distress, but I began to be weary of myself. Only thirtytwo years old, and to sit all day upon a

bench! Then he undertook to instruct me, and told me a great many Bible histories; the history of Joseph, of David, and many others; which he made me repeat after him. But my head was hard, for it had not been used to learn; and I grew every day more weary of my arms and legs.'

"And he tormented us all like a loup garou," said his wife, laughing.

6

"All true;" answered the husband, also laughing. "I became wicked. Then he came to me, and said, Jacques, I must put you to work.' I showed him my poor burned hands. 'I know it; I have bought you a stock in trade.' 'Me! Monsieur Desgranges?' Yes, Jacques, a stock where you need deposit nothing, and yet you will always find merchandise.' It has cost you much, Monsieur !' 'Nothing at all, mon garçon.' 'Where is it?' In the river." The river! Will you have me turn fisherman? No, you shall carry water. Carry water? but my eyes! What do you want with them?' said he. Have the brewers' horses any? When one has them, they do service; when one has them not, one must do without them. Allons, you shall be a water-carrier.' 'But a cask?' 'I will provide one for you.' But a dray?' I have ordered one from the wheelwright.' 'But customers?' 'I will give you my custom in the first place, eighteen francs a month; (that dear friend! he paid as dear for water as wine!) and besides, I will have no more said about it; I have dismissed my water-carrier, and you would not have my wife and me die of thirst! That dear Madame Desgranges, indeed! Go, mon garçon, in three days, to work! and you, Madame Jacques, come along!' and he took Julienne-"

"Yes, monsieur," interrupted the woman, "he took me, and put on the leather straps, and harnessed me; we were quite bewildered, Jacques and I. But who can hold back against Monsieur Desgranges? At the end of three days there we were; Jacques harnessed and drawing the cart with his cask of water, and I following and directing him how to go! We were ashamed at first as we went through the village, as if we had done something wrong; it seemed that everybody was going to laugh at us; but there was M. Desgranges in the street, crying, 'Allons, Jacques, courage!"

we went on; and in the evening he put into our hands a small piece of silver, saying "

"Saying," cried the blind man, with emotion, Jacques, here are twenty sous which you have earned to-day.' Earned, monsieur, think of that! Earned ! And for the last fifteen months I had been eating the bread of charity! It is good to receive from good persons, truly; but the bread earned by one's own hands, let it be never so coarse, nourishes the best! I was no longer a useless person, a burthen! but a workman! Jacques earns his living!" A kind of rapture spread itself over his face.

"How!" asked the young man, 'does this occupation bring you enough to live upon ?"

"Not entirely, monsieur; I have yet another business."

"Another business?"

"Oh, yes! the river is sometimes frozen over, and the water-carriers, as M. Desgranges says, have but poor encouragement; he has given me a business for winter as well as summer."

"A business for winter!"

At this moment M. Desgranges came in; Jacques heard him, and asked, "Is it not true, monsieur, that I have another business besides that of carrying water?"

"Certainly."
"And what?"

"He is a wood-sawyer."

"A wood-sawyer? How is that possible? How can you measure the length of the sticks, or manage the saw or cut the wood without hurting yourself?"

"Hurting myself, monsieur ?" repeated the blind man, with a look of honest pride; "you shall hear. In the first place, I used to saw wood, and I understood the business; the rest I have learned. Suppose a quantity of wood under the shed, at the left; my saw and knee-covering before me; and the wood to be sawn in three pieces. I take a string; I cut it one-third the length of the wood; there is a measure. I am careful and expert; and so I saw a good part of the wood used in the village."

"Besides," added M. Desgranges, "he is a capital messenger. "A messenger?" repeated the young man, surprised.

"Yes, monsieur; when I have a message to carry to Melun, I take my little girl on my shoulders, and away we go! She sees for me; I walk for her; and those who meet me, say, There is a man who has his eyes very high! to which I answer, It is to see the further. And in the evening I come home with twenty sous more in my pocket."

"Are you not afraid of stumbling against the stones?"

"I lift my feet high enough to avoid them; and now that I am used to it, I come often, from Noisemont hither, alone."

"Alone! How do you find your

way?"

"I take the wind when I start from home, and that serves me for the sun.

"But the puddles ?"
"I know them."
"The walls?"

"I feel them. When I come near anything solid, monsieur, the air is less fresh against my face. Not that I always escape some pretty hard knocks; for example, when a handcart is left standing in the street, and I come upon it without warning! But, bah! what matters that? Then I have been so unlucky as to lose myself as the day before yesterday

"You have not told me of that, Jacques," said M. Desgranges.

"I was very much puzzled, my dear friend. While I was here, the wind changed; I was not aware of it, and kept on my course, till, at the end of a quarter of an hour, I found I had lost myself somewhere on the plain of Noisemont. You know the plain; not a house-not a passer-by; I dared not stir. I sat down on the ground, and listened; after a few moments I heard at a short distance the sound of running water. I said to myself, It is the river! I groped my way, guided by the sound; I came to the water; it was the river. By dipping in my hand, I thought I could find which way the water ran. Then I could follow it, and come home."

"Bravo, Jacques!"

"Ah, the water was so low, and the current so weak, I could not feel it against my hand. I put in the end of my stick, but it did not move. scratched my head, bewildered; then cried, I am a fool! where is my hand

I

kerchief? I tied it on the end of my stick, dropped it in the water, and found that it moved slowly, very slowly, to the right! Noisemont was on the right! I arrived there safely, just as Julienne was beginning to be anxious about me."

"Indeed!" exclaimed the young man, "this is admira" But M. Desgranges checked him hastily, and leading him to the other end of the room, whispered, "Silence! do not corrupt by a thought of pride the simplicity of this honest man. Observe, how calm and tranquil is his face, after the story which has affected you. Do not spoil him by admiration."

"It is most touching!" replied he in a low voice.

"Truly; and yet that does not constitute his superiority. A thousand blind men might have been ingenious in finding resources; there are no limits to the devices of the human mind; but this is a work of the heart. It is the heart that, in this case, opened itself so quickly to elevating consolations. It was the heart which reconciled him to his unfortunate lot-which accepted a new life. Be not led into error; it is not I who have saved him; it is his affection for me. His warm gratitude has filled his being, and sustained him; he is restored, because he has loved!"

At this moment Jacques rose softly, hearing their voices, and with a kind of delicate discretion, said to his wife,

"Let us go, without making any noise."

"You are going, Jacques ?"

"I interrupt you, my dear M. Desgranges."

"No, stay longer," said his benefactor, and approached, cordially extending his hand. The blind man seized and pressed it to his breast.

"My dear, kind friend!" he cried, "you permit me to stay longer with you! you know how happy it makes me to be with you. Whenever I am melancholy, I say to myself, Jacques, the good God, because thou hast suffered much, will perhaps place thee in the same paradise with Monsieur Des granges, and the thought gives me joy again."

The young man laughed, in spite of himself, at this expression of regard.

"You laugh, Monsieur? And is it

not he who has made Jacques a man again? I have never seen him, but his image is always before me. Ob, if God should ever give me my eyes again, I would gaze upon him always, like the sun, till he said to me, Jacques, go away, thou weariest me!' but he would not say so, he is too good."

66

Jacques! Jacques!" said M. Desgranges gravely, interrupting him. But the blind man went on :

"I rejoice when I know he is in the village; I dare not come hither as often as I wish, but I pass before the house, which always stands there; and when he is gone on a journey, I make Julienne lead me to the plain of Noisemont, and bid her turn me in the direction in which he has gone, that I may breathe the same air with him."

M. Desgranges placed his hand on his mouth, but Jacques escaped from the restraint.

"You are right, Monsieur Desgranges; my mouth is a fool, it is only my heart that can speak. Come, wife," continued he, gaily, and wiping away the tears that rolled from his sightless eyeballs, we must go and get supper for the young ones. Adieu, my dear, kind friend! Adieu, Monsieur

And he went out, feeling before him with his stick. As he put his hand upon the latch M. Desgranges called him back.

"I have a piece of news yet that will please you, Jacques," said he. "I had intended to leave the village this year, but I have just agreed upon a lease of five years with my landlady."

"There, Julienne," said the blind man turning to his wife; "did I not tell thee he intended to go away?"

"How did you know it? I forbade every one to say anything to you about it."

"Yes-but". he placed his hand upon his heart," this informed me. I heard a few words, a month ago, which cansed me some trouble in my mind; and then, Monsieur, last Sunday, your landlady called me, and spoke to me in a manner much more kind and friendly than usual. Afterwards I said to my wife, 'now I know that Monsieur Desgranges is certainly going to leave us, that woman wanted to console me.''

Jacques departed a few moments after.