"Oh! brother, I am so glad to see you!" cried Alice, pressing her glowing cheek against his hand. It was thus she always said; and she did see him with her spirit's eyes, beautiful as a son of the morning, and radiant as the god of day. She passed her hands softly over his dark, brown locks, over the contour of his cheeks and chin with a kind of lingering, mesmerizing touch, which seemed to delight in tracing the lineaments of symmetry and grace. "Brother," she said, "your cheeks are reddening--I know it by their warmth. What makes the blood come up to the cheeks when the heart is glad? Helen's are red, too, for I know it by the throbbings of her heart." "Helen has one pale cheek and one red one," answered Arthur, passing his arm around her and drawing her towards him. "If she were a little older," added he, bending down and kissing the pale cheek, "we might bring a rose to this, and then they would be blooming twins." The rose did bloom most beautifully at his touch, and a smile of affectionate delight gilded the child's pensive lips. "Alice, my dear, what have you and Helen been doing since I was here? You are always planning something to surprise me--something to make me glad and grateful." "We have been knitting a purse for you, brother, each of us; and mother had just finished sewing on the tassel when you came. Tell me which is mine, and which is Helen's," cried she, taking them both from the table and mingling the hues of cerulean and emerald, the glitter of the golden globules which ornamented the one, and the silver beads which starred the other, in her hand. "The green and gold must be Helen's--the silver and blue yours, Alice. Am I right?" "No. But will you care if it is exactly the reverse. Helen chose the blue because it was my favorite color, and she thought you would prize it most. Green was left for me, and then, you know, I was obliged to mix it with gold." "But why was green left for you? and why were you _obliged_ to mix it with gold, instead of silver?" asked he, interested in tracing the origin of her associations. "I like but two colors," she replied, thoughtfully; "blue and green, the blue of the heavens, the green of the earth. It seems that gold is like sunshine, and the golden beads must resemble sunbeams on the green grass. Silver is like moonlight, and Helen's purse must make you think of moonbeams, shining from the bright blue sky." "Why, my sweet Alice, where did the poetry of your thoughts come from? I know not how such charming associations are born, unless of sight. Oh! there must be an inner light, purer and clearer than outward vision knows, in which the great source of light bathes the spirit of the blind." He paused a moment, with his eyes intently fixed on the soft, hazy orbs, which gave back no answering rays--then added, in a gayer tone--