"Ah, my poor girl," said Nicholas, "trouble is hard to bear when first it comes; but the back gets used to the burden. If you are a good girl, and say your prayers as should be, God will give you strength to bear what it is his pleasure to lay upon you. Won't He, dame? I am sure we have found it so. He is very merciful; and if He gives us trouble, He sends us comfort to make up for it. If it has pleased Him to afflict me with blindness, He has given me a good wife--ay, the best of wives; and if she is afflicted with her side, poor soul! why He has given her, and me too, dutiful children, and children who, some of them, are likely to do very well. There are our two boys, though they are settled in distant counties, they are very good to us, and have never let us want for anything, but have kept us off the parish as yet; and that's what few people can say for their sons. If we do but look the right way for them, we shall all find we have our comforts; though we may not be so sharp to find them out, as we are to find our troubles." Among Susan's causes of uneasiness there was one which she did not like to dwell upon to her parents. She had been used to assist towards the maintenance of the family, by taking in needle-work. She had now for many weeks been obliged to give up her occupation; and she felt that, though her brothers provided for the comfort of their parents, it was hard upon them to have a helpless sister also to support. She was allowed to be much in the air if she wore a shade over her eyes; and she frequently made use of this liberty to visit an old neighbour, who had long been bedridden, and who earned herself a decent livelihood by knitting stockings for the poor, and muffettees and handkerchiefs for the gentry, who admired the intricate and curious stitches with which she adorned her work. Susan, who already contemplated the probability of being eventually condemned to blindness, thought it would prove useful if, while she still retained some eye-sight, she was to make herself acquainted with old Nelly's art; and accordingly she applied herself diligently to acquire the requisite proficiency. She would sometimes close her eyes and try whether she could thus accomplish the difficult stitch; and then, when she opened them for the purpose of ascertaining where lay her mistake, she would sigh to think the time might soon arrive when the darkness would be eternal. Susan's visits to Nelly Warner had a considerable and not unfavourable influence upon her future character. The old woman was naturally of a querulous disposition, and was more inclined to dwell on the many privations to which her complaint condemned her, than on the superior comforts which fell to her lot beyond others who were equally afflicted. She had an attentive grand-daughter, who was devoted to her; and she was not in want of what might in her line of life be deemed comforts, for the neighbouring gentry showed her much kindness.