“O, but that's so long!” said the child.

“What makes you think so much of her?” asked Willie.

“She thinks much of me; she can't see me, and she likes me
better than anybody but Uncle True.”

“I don't believe it; I don't believe she likes you half as well
as I do. I know she don't! How can she, when she's blind, and
never saw you in her life, and I see you all the time, and love
you better than I do anybody in the world, except my mother?”

“Do you really, Willie?”

“Yes, I do. I always think, when I come home, Now I'm
going to see Gerty; and everything that happens all the weck, I
think to myself—I shall tell Gerty that.”

“I shouldn't think you'd like me so well.”

“Why not?”

“O, because you're so handsome, and I an't handsome a bit.
I heard Ellen Chase tell Lucretia Davis, the other day, that she
thought Gerty Flint was the worst-looking girl in school.”

“Then she ought to be ashamed of herself,” said Willie. “I
guess she an't very good-looking. I should hate the looks of her,
or any other girl that said that.”

“O, Willie!” exclaimed Gerty, earnestly, “it's true; as true
as can be.”

“No, it an't true,” said Willie. “To be sure, you haven't got
long curls, and a round face, and blue eyes, like Belle Clinton's,
and nobody'd think of setting you up for a beauty; but when
you've been running, and have rosy cheeks, and your great
black eyes shine, and you laugh so heartily as you do sometimes
at anything funny, I often think you're the brightest-looking girl
I ever saw in my life; and I don't care what other folks think, as
long as I like your looks. I feel just as bad when you cry, or
anything's the matter with you, as if it were myself, and worse.
George Bray struck his little sister Mary yesterday, because she
tore his kite; I should have liked to give him a flogging. I
wouldn't strike you, Gerty, if you tore all my playthings to
pieces.”

Such professions of affection on Willie's part were frequent,
and always responded to by a like declaration from Gerty. Nor

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were they mere professions. The two children loved each other
dearly. They were very differently constituted, for Willie was
earnest, persevering and patient, calm in his temperament, and
equal in his spirits. Gerty, on the other hand, excitable and
impetuous, was constantly thrown off her guard; her temper was
easily roused, her spirits variable, her whole nature sensitive to
the last degree. Willie was accustomed to be loved, expected to
be loved, and was loved by everybody. Gerty had been an outcast
from all affection, looked not for it, and, except under
favorable circumstances and by those who knew her well, did not
readily inspire it. But that they loved each other there could
be no doubt; and, if in the spring the bond between them was
already strong, autumn found it cemented by still firmer ties;
for, during Emily's absence, Willie filled her place and his own
too, and though Gerty did not forget her blind friend, she passed
a most happy summer, and continued to make such progress in
her studies at school, that, when Emily returned to the city in
October, she could hardly understand how so much had been
accomplished in what had seemed to her so short a time.

The following winter, too, was passed most profitably by Gerty.
Miss Graham's kindly feeling towards her little protegée, far from
having diminished, seemed to have been increased by time and
absence, and Gerty's visits to Emily became more frequent than
ever. The profit derived from these visits was not all on Gerty's
part. Emily had been in the habit, the previous winter, of hearing
her read occasionally, that she might judge of her proficiency;
now, however, she discovered, on the first trial, that the little girl
had attained to a greater degree of excellence in this accomplishment
than is common among grown people. She read understandingly,
and her accent and intonations were so admirable,
that Emily found rare pleasure in listening to her.

Partly with a view to the child's benefit, and partly for her
own gratification, she proposed that Gerty should come every day
and read to her for an hour. Gerty was only too happy to oblige
her dear Miss Emily, who, in making the proposal, represented it
as a personal favor to herself, and a plan by which Gerty's eyes
could serve for them both. It was agreed that when True started

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on his lamp-lighting expeditions he should take Gerty to Mr.
Graham's, and call for her on his return. Owing to this arrangement,
Gerty was constant and punctual in her attendance at the
appointed time; and none but those who have tried it are aware
what a large amount of reading may be accomplished in six
months, if only an hour is devoted to it regularly each day.
Emily, in her choice of books, did not confine herself to such as
come strictly within a child's comprehension. She judged, rightly,
that a girl of such keen intelligence as Gerty was naturally endowed
with would suffer nothing by occasionally encountering
what was beyond her comprehension; but that, on the contrary,
the very effort she would be called upon to make would enlarge
her capacity, and be an incentive to her genius. So history,
biography, and books of travels, were perused by Gerty at an
age when most children's literary pursuits are confined to stories
and pictures. The child seemed, indeed, to give the preference to
this comparatively solid reading; and, aided by Emily's kind
explanations and encouragement, she stored up in her little brain
many an important fact and much useful information. At Gerty's
age the memory is strong and retentive, and things impressed on
the mind then are usually better remembered than what is
learned in after years, when the thoughts are more disturbed and
divided.

Her especial favorite was a little work on astronomy, which
puzzled her more than all the rest put together, but which delighted
her in the same proportion; for it made some things
clear, and all the rest, though a mystery still, was to her a
beautiful mystery, and one which she fully meant some time to
explore to the uttermost. And this ambition to learn more, and
understand better, by and by, was, after all, the greatest good she
derived. Awaken a child's ambition, and implant in her a taste
for literature, and more is gained than by years of school-room
drudgery, where the heart works not in unison with the head.

From the time Gerty was first admitted, until she was twelve
years old, she continued to attend the public schools, and was
rapidly advanced and promoted; but what she learned with Miss
Graham, and acquired by study with Willie at home, formed

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nearly as important a part of her education. Willie, as we have
said, was very fond of study, and was delighted at Gerty's warm
participation in his favorite pursuit. They were a great advantage
to each other, for each found encouragement in the other's sympathy
and coöperation. After the first year or two of their
acquaintance, Willie could not be properly called a child, for he
was in his fifteenth year, and beginning to look quite manly. But
Gerty's eagerness for knowledge had all the more influence upon
him; for, if the little girl ten years of age was patient and willing
to labor at her books until after nine o'clock, the youth of fifteen
must not rub his eyes and plead weariness. It was when they
had reached these respective years that they commenced studying
French together. Willie's former teacher continued to feel a
kindly interest in the boy, who had long been his best scholar,
and who would certainly have borne away from his class the first
prizes, had not a higher duty called him to inferior labors previous
to the public exhibition. Whenever he met him in the street, or
elsewhere, he inquired concerning his mode of life, and whether
he continued his studies. Finding that Willie had considerable
spare time, he earnestly advised him to learn the French language,—
that being a branch of knowledge which would undoubtedly
prove useful to him, whatever business he might chance to pursue in
life,—and offered to lend him such books as he would need at thè
commencement.

Willie availed himself of his teacher's advice, and his kind
offer, and began to study in good earnest. When he was at home
in the evening, he was in the habit of coming into True's room,
partly for the sake of quiet (for True was a quiet man, and had
too great a veneration for learning to interrupt the students with
his questions), and partly for the sake of being with Gerty, who
was usually, at that time, occupied with her books. Gerty, as
may be supposed, conceived a strong desire to learn French, too.
Willie was willing she should try, but had no confidence that she
would long persevere. To his surprise, however, she not only
discovered a wonderful determination, but a decided talent for language;
and, as Emily furnished her with books similar to Willie's,
she kept pace with him, oftentimes translating more during the

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week than he could find time to do. On Saturday evening, when
they always had a fine study time together, True would sit on his
old settle by the fire, watching Willie and Gerty, side by side, at
the table, with their eyes bent on the page, which to him seemed
the greatest of earthly labyrinths. Gerty always looked out the
words, in which employment she had great skill, her bright eyes
diving, as if by magic, into the very heart of the dictionary, and
transfixing the right word at a glance, while Willie's province
was to make sense. Almost the only occasion when True was
known to disturb them, by a word even, was when he first heard
Willie talk about making sense. “Making sense, Willie?” said
the old man; “is that what ye're after? Well, you could n't do
a better business. I'll warrant you a market for it; there's
want enough on 't in the world!”

It was but natural that, under such favorable influences as
Gerty enjoyed, with Emily to advise and direct, and Willie to
aid and encourage, her intellect should rapidly expand and
strengthen. But how is it with that little heart of hers, that, at
once warm and affectionate, impulsive, sensitive and passionate,
now throbs with love and gratitude, and now again burns as
vehemently with the consuming fire that a sense of wrong, a consciousness
of injury, to herself or her friends, would at any
moment enkindle? Has she, in two years of happy childhood,
learned self-control? Has she also attained to an enlightened
sense of the distinction between right and wrong, truth and falsehood?
In short, has Emily been true to her self-imposed trust,
her high resolve, to soften the heart and instruct the soul of
the little ignorant one? Has Gerty learned religion? Has she
found out God, and begun to walk patiently in that path which
is lit by a holy light, and leads to rest?

She has begun; and though her footsteps often falter, though
she sometimes quite turns aside, and, impatient of the narrow
way, gives the rein to her old irritability and ill-temper, she is
yet but a child, and there is the strongest foundation for hopefulness
in the sincerity of her good intentions, and the depth of her
contrition when wrong has had the mastery. Emily has spared
no pains in teaching her where to place her strong reliance, and

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Gerty has already learned to look to higher aid than Emily's,
and to lean on a mightier arm.

Miss Graham had appointed for herself no easy task, when she
undertook to inform the mind and heart of a child utterly untaught
in the ways of virtue. In some important points, however,
she experienced far less difficulty than she had anticipated. For
instance, after her first explanation to Gerty of the difference
between honesty and dishonesty, the truth and a lie, she never
had any cause to complain of the child, whose whole nature was
the very reverse of deceptive, and whom nothing but extreme fear
had ever driven to the meanness of falsehood. If Gerty's greatest
fault lay in a proud and easily-roused temper, that very fault
carried with it its usual accompaniment of frankness and sincerity.
Under almost any circumstances, Gerty would have been too
proud to keep back the truth, even before she became too virtuous.
Emily was convinced, before she had known Gerty six
months, that she could always depend upon her word; and nothing
could have been a greater encouragement to Miss Graham's unselfish
efforts than the knowledge that truth, the root of every
holy thing, had thus easily and early been made to take up its
abode in the child. But this sensitive, proud temper of Gerty's
seemed an inborn thing; abuse and tyranny had not been able
to crush it; on the contrary, it had flourished in the midst of the
unfavorable influences amid which she had been nurtured. Kindness
could accomplish almost anything with her, could convince
and restrain; but restraint from any other source was unbearable,
and, however proper and necessary a check it might be, she
was always disposed to resent it. Emily knew that to such a
spirit even parental control is seldom sufficient. She knew of but
one influence that is strong enough, one power that never fails
to quell and subdue earthly pride and passion; the power of
Christian humility, engrafted into the heart,—the humility of
principle, of conscience,—the only power to which native pride
ever will pay homage.

She knew that a command, of almost any kind, laid upon
Gerty by herself or Uncle True, would be promptly obeyed; for,
in either case, the little girl would know that the order was given

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in love, and she would fulfil it in the same spirit; but, to provide
for all contingencies, and to make the heart right as well as the
life, it was necessary to inspire her with a higher motive than
merely pleasing either of these friends; and, in teaching her the
spirit of her Divine Master, Emily was making her powerful to
do and to suffer, to bear and to forbear, when, depending on herself,
she should be left to her own guidance alone. How much
Gerty had improved in the two years that had passed since she
first began to be so carefully instructed and provided for, the
course of our story must develop. We cannot pause to dwell
upon the trials and struggles, the failures and victories, that she
experienced. It is sufficient to say that Miss Graham was satisfied
and hopeful, True proud and overjoyed, while Mrs. Sullivan,
and even old Mr. Cooper, declared she had improved wonderfully
in her behavior and her looks, and was remarkably mannerly for
such a child.

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