As for the mother, she spoke back with brave anger and she said, “She is not blind! Whoever heard of sore eyes making people blind? My man’s mother’s eyes were sore from childhood, but she did not die blind!” And she went quickly before the man could make an answer, and she held the girl’s hand hard to stay its trembling, and she went to a silversmith, not to that same one, and she took from her bosom that packet and she gave it to the bearded man who kept the shop and said, in a low voice, “Change me these into coin, for my man is dead and I cannot wear them more.” Then while the old man weighed out the trinkets to see what their worth was in coin, she waited and the young girl began to sob a little softly in her sleeve and then she said out from her sobs, “I do not believe I am truly blind, mother, for it seems to me I see something shining there on the scales, and if I were blind I could not see it, could I? What is that shining?” Then the mother knew the girl was blind indeed, or good as blind, for the trinkets lay bright and plain not two feet from the girl’s face, and she groaned in herself and she said, “You are right, too, child, and it is a bit of silver I had in a ring and I cannot wear now, and so I change it into coin we can use.” And in this new sorrow come upon her the woman gave no single thought to the trinkets when they were gone or thought of what they meant. No, she only thought of this, that with all their silvery shining her child could not see them, and the old man took them and hung them in his little case where he kept bracelets and rings and chains for children’s necks and such pretty things, and she forgot all they had meant to her except, now, a shining thing her blind child could not see. * * * * * Yet was there one thing more to do, and she knew that she must do, if so be the child was to be truly blind. Holding the girl’s hand she went along, shielding her from those who passed, for by now the streets were thronged and many came to buy and sell, farmers and gardeners setting their baskets of green and fresh vegetables along the sides of the streets, and fishermen setting out their tubs of fish there too. But the mother went until she came to a certain shop and she left the girl beside the door and went in alone, and when a clerk came forward to know what she would have, she pointed at a thing and said, “That,” and it was the small brass gong and the little wooden hammer tied to it that the blind use when they walk to warn others they are blind. The clerk struck it once or twice to show its worth before he wrapped it, and hearing that sound the young girl lifted her head quickly and called, “Mother, there is a blind man here, for I hear a sound clear as a bell.” The clerk laughed loudly then, for well he saw the maid was blind, and he burst out, “There be none but--”