"Oh, you need not," he said smiling. "I have been preparing myself for blindness for a long time, and I have practised walking about with closed eyes, that I might not be so helpless when the time came. And so now I can find my way very well." He had reached the door, and went out. "Good-morning, children!" he cried, and felt his way along the wall to the school-room, followed by his anxious wife. He stumbled a little upon the threshold. "Never mind," he said to Brigitta, who would have supported him. "I need more practice, but it will be better soon." He found his desk, seated himself there, and waited until the children had all taken their places. "Are you all here?" "Yes," was the reply. "Well, then, sit down,--we cannot have any school to-day. My dear children, I must take leave of you. I cannot teach you any more. God has taken from me my eyesight. I cannot see you nor your lessons, and therefore I can no longer be your schoolmaster. Your parents will consider my blindness a punishment from God for my conduct, but I tell you, if the trials God sends us are rightly borne they are not punishments, but benefits. Remember this all your lives long. There will come dark hours in every one of your lives, if you live to grow up, when you will understand what your old master meant. And now come and give me your hands, one after the other. So,--I thank you for your childlike tenderness and affection, and I forgive from the bottom of my heart those few who have ever given me any trouble. My son will soon be here in my place; promise me to obey him, and to make his duty easier for him by diligence and obedience. Farewell, my dear children. God bless and prosper you!" He held out his hands, and the children, sobbing and crying, thronged around him to clasp and kiss them. "Who is this?" the old man asked of each one, and then, as the names were told him, he shook the little hands. "Do not cry, dear children, we are not bidding farewell for life. You will often pass by the school-house on Sunday and shake hands with your old master as he sits on his bench before the door. And then I can guess by the voice who it is, and can feel how much you have grown, and you can tell me what you have been learning during the week. And those who have studied the best shall have some nuts, or one of my loveliest flowers, or some other little gift. Won't that be delightful?" The children were consoled by this prospect, and hastened home to tell the important news to their parents.