During her few weeks residence at Laurel Hill Maude Glendower had bound the crippled boy to herself by many a deed of love, and whatever she did was sure of meeting his approval. With him she had consulted concerning his sister's room, yielding often to his artist taste in the arrangement of the furniture, and now that the chamber was ready they both awaited impatiently the arrival of its occupant. Nellie's last letter had been rather encouraging, and Maude herself had appended her name at its close. 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."