Dear Anaïs, _you_ are happy; you can see. To see! Oh, to see! to be able to distinguish the blue sky, the sun, and all the different colours--what a joy! True, I once enjoyed this privilege, but when I was struck with blindness, I was scarcely ten years old. Now I am twenty-five. It is fifteen long years since everything around me became as black as night! In vain, dear friend, do I endeavour to recall the wonders of nature. I have forgotten all her hues. I smell the scent of the rose, I guess its shape by the touch; but its boasted colour, to which all beautiful women are compared, I have forgotten--or, rather, I cannot describe. Sometimes under this thick veil of darkness strange gleams flit. The doctors say that this is the movement of the blood, and that this may give some promise of a cure. Vain delusion! When one has lost for fifteen years the lights which beautify the earth, they are never to be found again except in heaven. The other day I had a rare sensation. In groping in my room I put my hand upon--oh! you would never guess--upon a mirror! I sat down in front of it, and arranged my hair like a coquette. Oh! what would I have given to be able to regard myself!--to know if I was nice!--if my skin is as white as it is soft, and if I have pretty eyes under my long lashes!--Ah! they often told us at school that the devil comes in the glasses of little girls who look at themselves too long! All I can say is, if he came in mine he must have been nicely caught--my lord Satan. I couldn't have seen him! You ask me in your kind letter, which they have just read to me, whether it is true that the failure of a banker has ruined my parents. I have heard nothing about it. No, they are rich. I am supplied with every luxury. Everywhere that my hand rests it touches silk and velvet, flowers and precious stuffs. Our table is abundant, and every day my taste is coaxed with dainties. Therefore, you see, Anaïs, that my beloved folks are happily well off. Write to me, my darling, since you are now back from that aristocratic England, and you have some pity for the poor blind girl. LETTER II. You have no idea, Anaïs, what I am going to tell you! Oh! you will laugh as if you had gone crazy. You will believe that with my sight I must have lost my reason. I have a lover! Yes, dear; I, the girl without eyes, have a wooer as melting and as importunate as the lover of a duchess. After this, what is to be said? Love, who is as blind as blind can be, undoubtedly owed me this as one of his own kind. How _he_ got in amongst us I don't know; still less, what he is going to do here. All I can tell you is that he sat on my left at dinner the other day, and that he looked after me with extreme care and attention. "This is the first time," I said, "that I have had the honour of meeting you." "True," he answered, "but I know your parents." "You are welcome," I replied, "since you know how to esteem them--my good angels!"