They were both engaged in the same occupation--knitting purses--and no one could have told by the quick, graceful motions of the fingers of Alice, that they moved without one guiding ray from those beautiful blue eyes, that seemed to follow all their intricacies. Neither could any one have known, by gazing on those beautiful eyes, that the _soul_ did not look forth from their azure depths. There was a soft dreaminess floating over the opaque orbs, like the dissolving mist of a summer's morning, that appeared but the cloudiness of thought. Alice was uncommonly lovely. Her complexion had a kind of rosy fairness, indicative of the pure under-current which, on every sudden emotion, flowed in bright waves to her cheeks. This was a family peculiarity, and one which Helen remarked in the young doctor the first time she beheld him. Her profuse flaxen hair fell shadingly over her brow, and an acute observer might have detected her blindness by her suffering the fair locks to remain till a breeze swept them aside. They did not _veil her vision_. Mrs. Hazleton, with pardonable maternal vanity, loved to dress her beautiful blind child in a manner decorating to her loveliness. A simple white frock in summer, ornamented with a plain blue ribbon, constituted her usual holiday attire. She could select herself the color she best liked, by passing her hand over the ribbon, and though her garments and Helen's were of the same size, she could tell them apart, from the slightest touch. Helen was less exquisitely fair, less beautiful than Alice, but hers was an eye of sunbeams and shadows, that gave wonderful expression to her whole face. Some one has observed that "every face is either a history or a prophecy." Child as Helen was, hers was _both_. You could read in those large, pensive, hazel eyes, a history of past sufferings and trials. You could read, too, in their deep, appealing, loving expression, a prophecy of all a woman's heart is capable of feeling or enduring. "I never saw such eyes in the head of a child," was a common remark upon Helen. "There is something wildly, hauntingly interesting in them; one loves and pities her at the first glance." Helen was too pale and thin to be a beautiful child, but with such a pair of haunting eyes, soft, silky hair of the same hazel hue, hanging in short curls just below her ears, and a mouth of rare and winning sweetness, she was sure to be remembered when no longer present. She looked several years older than Alice, though of the same age, for the calm features of the blind child had never known the agitations of terror or the vague apprehensions of unknown evil. Every one said "Helen would be pretty," and felt that she was interesting. Now, while knitting her purse, and sliding the silver beads along the blue silken thread, she would look up with an eager, listening countenance, as if her thoughts were gone forth to meet some one, who delayed their coming.