constant sense of the nearness of God's presence, and of a strange joy that filled his heart. On the following day the Vicar suggested that we should go to see him; we turned out of a lane, and found a little cottage with a thatched roof, standing in a small orchard, bright with flowers. On a bench we saw the man sitting, entirely unconscious of our presence. He was a tall, strongly-built fellow with a beard, bronzed and healthy in appearance. His eyes were wide open, and, but for a curious fixity of gaze, I should not have suspected that he was blind. His hands were folded on his knee, and he was smiling; once or twice I saw his lips move as if he was talking to himself. "We won't go up to him," said the Vicar, "as it might startle him; we will find his wife." So we went up to the cottage door, and knocked. It was opened to us by a small elderly woman, with a grave, simple look, and a very pleasant smile. The little place was wonderfully clean and neat. The Vicar introduced me, saying that I had been much interested in her husband's writings, and had come to call on him. She smiled briskly, and said that he would be much pleased. We walked down the path; when we were within a few feet of him, he became aware of our presence, and turned his head with a quiet, expectant air. His wife went up to him, took his hand, and seemed to beat on it softly with her fingers; he smiled, and presently raised his hat, as if to greet us, and then took up a little writing-pad which lay beside him, and began to write. A little conversation followed, his wife reading out what he had written, and then interpreting our remarks to him. What struck me most was the absence of egotism in what he wrote. He asked the Vicar one or two questions, and desired to know who I was. I went and sate down beside him; he wrote in his book that it was a pleasure to him to meet a stranger. Might he take the liberty of seeing him in his own way? "He means," said the wife, smiling, "might he put his hand on your face--some people do not like it," she added apologetically, "and he will quite understand if you do not." I said that I was delighted; and the blind man thereupon laid his hand upon my sleeve, and with an incredible deftness and lightness of touch, so that I hardly felt it, passed his finger-tips over my coat and waistcoat, lingered for a moment over my watch-chain, then over my tie and collar, and then very gently over my face and hair; it did not last half a minute, and there was something curiously magnetic in the touch of the slim firm fingers. "Now I see him," he wrote; "please thank him." "It will please him," said the Vicar, "if we ask him to describe you." In a moment, after a few touches of his wife's hand, he smiled, and wrote down a really remarkably accurate picture of my appearance. We then asked him a few questions about himself. "Very well and very happy," he wrote, "full