All is still and solitary--the lamp burns on the table, with wasting splendour. The writing-desk is open before me, with the last letter unfolded--the letter I have cherished so fondly, though every word seems an arrow to my conscience. I cannot solace myself by the act, yet I must give utterance to the feelings with which my heart is bursting. On these unwritten sheets I will breathe my soul--I will trace its early history, and, perchance, _his_ eye may see them when mine are veiled in a darkness deeper than that which once sealed them. Yet what shall I write? How shall I commence? What great events rise up in the records of memory, over which imagination may throw its rich empurpling dyes? Alas! mine is but a record of the heart--but of a _blind_ girl's heart--and that Being who bound my eyes with a fillet of darkness, till the hand of science lifted the thick film, and flooded them with the glories of creation, alone knows the mysteries of the spirit he has made. _His_ eye is upon me at this moment, and as this awful conviction comes over me, a kind of deathlike calmness settles on the restless sea of passion. Oh! when I was blind, what was my conception of the All-seeing eye! It seemed to me as if it filled the world with its effulgence. I felt as if I, in my blindness, were placed in the hollow of that rock where Moses hid, when the glory of the Lord passed by. Would that no daring hand had drawn me from that protecting shade! The beams that enlighten me have withered up the fountains of joy, and though surrounded by light, as with a garment, my soul is wrapped in the gloom of midnight. I was a blind child--blind from my birth--with one brother, older than myself, and a widowed father--for we were motherless--motherless, sisterless--yet blind. What a world of dependence is expressed in these few words! But, though thus helpless and dependent, I was scarcely conscious of my peculiar claim to sympathy and care.