The years rolled on their accustomed way; the old people withered slowly, and the young ones bloomed rapidly. When Clement returned once again at Easter, and Mary arose from her spinning wheel, he was astonished to see how tall and stately she had grown since the autumn. "You are quite a woman," he said; "and I, too, am no longer a child; only feel how my beard has grown over my winter studies." A blush flitted across her cheek as he took her hand and placed it on his chin, to let her feel the newly-sprung down. He had, too, many more things to tell her than the first time he returned. The tutor with whom he lived had daughters, and these daughters had lady friends. He was obliged to describe them one and all with the greatest accuracy. "I can make nothing out of the girls," he said; "they are silly and frivolous, and chatter too much. There is one, Cecilia, that I can endure a little better than the others, because she can hold her tongue, and does not make grimaces in order to look pretty. But what do they bother me for? The other evening, when I went into my room, I found a bunch of flowers on my table, and let it lie, and never took the trouble to put it in water, though I was sorry for the flowers; but it annoyed me. And the next day there was such a giggling and whispering amongst the girls that I could not speak to them for anger. Why cannot they leave me alone? They know that I have no time for their nonsense!" Not one word of all this did Mary lose, and spun an endless thread of strange thoughts out of it. She was almost in danger of injuring herself with fruitless dreamings, if a too well grounded cause of anxiety and real sorrow had not saved her. Her father, who had for a long time been able to do his duty with difficulty, had a paralytic stroke, and lay nearly a year perfectly helpless, until a second attack put an end to his sufferings. Not for an hour did his child leave his side. Even when the vacations brought Clement home again, she only permitted herself to talk to him during his short visits to the sickroom. She grew ever more firm, ever more self-denying. She complained to no one, and would have required the help of none had her blindness permitted her to do all herself. And thus her misfortune, which had tutored her soul, accustomed her also to household duties, neglected by many a seeing one. She kept the strictest order over all things of which she had the care, and no amount of cleanliness could satisfy her, as she was unable to judge by the eye when the least speck of dust was removed. The tears sprang into Clement's eyes when he saw her busied washing her crippled father, or combing out his thin locks. She had grown pale in the close air of the sick-room; but her brown eyes had a deeper light from that very cause, and in all her common household work, the true nobility of her whole being only became the more evident.