The words “to be so poor” caught Mr. Howland’s ear, and glancing around the humble apartment he fancied he knew why Alice wept. Just then she lifted up her head and he saw the tears on her cheek. Mr. Howland was unused to tears—they affected him strangely—and as the sight of them on Alice Warren’s eyelashes, when she told him her father was blind, had once brought down the rent of the house by half, so now the sight of them upon her cheek as she sat at her father’s feet brought himself into her presence and the turkey from his basket. Depositing his gift upon the table and apologizing for his abruptness, he took the chair which Alice offered him, and in a short space of time forgot the young lady who had so nearly prevented him from being where he was—forgot everything save the blue of Alice’s eyes and the mournful sweetness of her voice as she answered the few questions he addressed to her. He saw at once that both father and daughter were educated and refined, but he did not question them of the past, for he felt instinctively that it would be to them an unpleasant subject, so he conversed upon indifferent topics, and Alice, as she listened to him, could scarcely believe he was the man whom she had heretofore associated with her wages of Saturday night, he seemed so familiar and friendly. “You will come to see us again,” Mr. Warren said to his visitor, when the latter arose to go, and smiling down on Alice, who stood with her arm across her father’s neck, Mr. Howland answered: “Yes, I shall come again.” Then he bade them good night, and as the door closed after him, Mr. Warren said: “It seems darker now that he is gone,” but to Alice, the room was lighter far for that brief visit. Mr. Howland, too, felt better for the call. He had done some good, he hoped, and the picture of the two as he had left them was pleasant to remember, and as he drew near his home, and saw in imagination his own large easy-chair before the fire, he tried to fancy how it would seem to be a blind man, sitting there, with a brown-haired maiden’s arm around his neck. CHAPTER IV. THE WHITE HOUSE ON THE HILL. “Miss Huntington, brother,” Miss Elinor said, and Mr. Howland bowed low to the lady thus presented to him by his sister on his arrival home.