A sudden thought seemed to strike the young man as he looked at Lizzie’s fair, sightless face. He had lived with her so long, in a sisterly way, that it had never struck him to regard her in any other light. But something in the inflection of her voice as she addressed him, made him wonder if he were capable of making her happier than she had ever been yet. He cherished no other hopes capable of realisation. What if he could make his own troubles lighter by lightening those of poor Liz? Something of this sort, but in much rougher clothing, passed through his half-tutored mind. As it grasped the idea he turned hurriedly towards the girl kneeling at his knee. ‘Do you really care about me, lass?’ he said. ‘Do you care if I’m vexed or not? Whether I come in or go out? If I like my dinner or I don’t like it? Does all this nonsense worry you? Answer me, for I want to know.’ ‘Oh! Larry, what do you mean? Of course I care. I can’t do much for you—more’s the pity—without my poor eyes, but I can think of you and love you, Larry, and surely you know that I do both.’ ‘But would you like to love me more, Liz?’ ‘How could I love you more?’ ‘Would you like to have the _right_ to care for me—the _right_ to creep after me in your quiet way wherever I might happen to go—the _right_ to walk alongside of me, with your hand in mine, up to the harvesting home to-night; eh, Liz?’ The girl half understood her cousin’s meaning, but she was too modest not to fear she might be mistaken. Larry could never wish to take _her_, blind and helpless, for his _wife_. ‘Larry, speak to me more plainly; I don’t catch your meaning quite.’ ‘Will you marry me then, Liz, and live along of mother and me to the end of your life?’ ‘_Marry you!_—Be your _wife_!—_Me!_ _Oh_, Larry, you can’t mean it! never.’ ‘I do mean it,’ replied her cousin with an oath; ‘and I’ll take you as soon as ever you’ll take me if you will but say the word.’ ‘But I am _blind_, Larry.’ ‘Do you suppose I don’t know that? Perhaps I likes you blind best.’ ‘But I am so useless. I get about so slowly. If anything was to happen to aunt, how could I keep the house clean and cook the dinners, Larry? You must think a bit more before you decide for good.’ But the poor child’s face was burning with excitement the while, and her sightless eyes were thrown upwards to her cousin’s face as though she would strain through the darkness to see it. ‘If anything happened to mother, do you suppose I’d turn you out of doors, Liz? And in any case, then, I must have a wife or a servant to do the work—it will make no difference that way. The only question is, do you want me for a husband?’ ‘Oh! I have loved you ever so!’ replied the girl, throwing herself into his arms. ‘I couldn’t love another man, Larry. I know your face as well as if I had seen it, and your step, and your voice. I can tell them long before another body knows there’s sound a-coming.’ ‘Then you’ll have me?’