They are getting somewhat accustomed to it now--accustomed to calling her their "poor, blind bird," but the blow was crushing when first it came, and on the grave in the valley, Graham Thornton more than once laid his forehead in the dust, and cried, "My punishment is greater than I can bear," But He "who doeth all things well," has in a measure healed the wound, throwing so much of sunshine and of joy around her, who never saw the glorious light of day, that with every morning's dawn and every evening's shade, the fond parents bless their little blind girl, the angel of their home. THE ANSWERED PRAYER All day long the canary bird' had sung unheeded in his gilded cage by the door, and the robin had caroled unheard by his nest in the tall maple tree, while the soft summer air and the golden rays of the warm June sun entered unnoticed the open windows of the richly furnished room, where a pale young mother kept her tireless watch by the bedside of her only child, a beautiful boy, three summers old. For many days he had hovered between life and death, while she, his mother, had hung over him with speechless agony, terrible to behold in one so young, so fair as she. He was her all, the only happiness she knew, for poor Lina Hastings was an unloving wife, who never yet had felt a thrill of joy at the sound of her husband's voice, and when occasionally his broad hand rested fondly upon her flowing curls, while he whispered in her ear how dear she was to him, his words awoke no answering chord of love. How came she then his wife--and the mistress of his princely home? Alas! _wealth_ was then the god which Lina Moore worshipped, and when Ralph Hastings, with his uncouth form and hundreds of thousands, asked her to be his wife, she stifled the better feelings of her nature which prompted her to tell him No, and with a gleam of pride in her dark blue eyes, and a deeper glow upon her cheek, she one day passed from the bright sunshine of heaven into the sombre gloom of the gray old church, whence she came forth Lina Hastings, shuddering even as she heard that name, and shrinking involuntarily from the caresses which the newly made husband bestowed upon her. And so the love she withheld from him was given the child who now lay motionless and white as the to the costly linen on which his golden curls were streaming.