"No, it was not a very nice thing to happen to anybody; two year ago now, and there has been nothing but fierce, aching blackness round me ever since, and great silence except for the rumblings in my ears like trains in a tunnel; but I hear nothing, not even the thunder. At first I fretted awful; I felt as if I must have done something very wicked for God to rain down fire from heaven on me as if I had been Sodom and Gomorrah; but I'd not done half so bad as many; I'd always kept myself respectable, and done the lace-mending, and earned enough for mother, too--fortunately, she died afore the thunder came and hit me, or she'd have broken her heart for me. It was very strange. Mother was such a one to be frightened at thunder, and when we lived in the country before father died she always took a candle and the Book and went down to the cellar out of the way of the lightning--seemed as if she knew what a nasty trick the thunder was going to play me--she was always a very understanding woman, was mother--she came from Wales, and had what she called 'the sight.' "Yes; I went on fretting fearful about my sins until the blind gentleman found me out--him as comes oh Saturdays and teaches us blind ladies to read. Oh, he was a comfort! He learned me the deaf alphabet, and how to read in the Braille book, and it's not so bad now. He knows all about the heavenly Jerusalem, and the beautiful music and the flowers blossoming round the Throne of God. I think he's what they calls a Methody, and mother and I were Church. I used to go to the Sunday School, and learnt the Catechism, and 'thus to think of the Trinity.' However, he's a very good man all the same, and a great comfort--and he found me a special text from God: 'Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped.' That is the promise to me and to him; being blind, he understands a bit himself, though what the hullaballoo in my ears is no tongue can tell. "Mrs. Green, the other blind lady, is such a one to be talking about the diamonds and pearls in the crowns of glory; but I don't understand nothing about no jewels. What I seem to want to see again is the row of scarlet geraniums that used to stand on our window-sill; the sun always shone in on them about tea-time, and mother and I thought a world of the light shining on them red Jacobys. But the blind gentleman says as I shall see them again round the Throne." "She wanders a bit," said the one-eyed granny, touching her forehead significantly; "she's such a one for this Methody talk." I have noticed that the tone of the workhouse, though perfectly tolerant and liberal, is inclined to scepticism, in spite of the vast preponderance of the Church of England (C. of E.) in the "Creed Book." "Let her wander, then," retorted another orthodox member; "she ain't got much to comfort her 'ere below--the work'us ain't exactly a paradise. For Gawd's sake leave 'er 'er 'eaven and 'er scarlet geraniums."