"MY DARLING'S BLIND"

A lady entered a car on the Oakwood road one day the past week, leading a little girl perhaps four years old. The mother sat down and lifted the little one to the seat beside her. The child was nibbling at a bit of cake or sugar. Now and then turning her face, full of childish love, up to her mother, and murmuring some almost unintelligible word of affection. ­

     Opposite to mother and child sat another young lady. who often smelled a rose which she held. The innocent little one before her attracted her' attention, and the natural kindliness of the sympathetic woman heart prompted her to at once offer the fragrant flower to the little budding lily opposite. So she leaned a bit forward and spoke:

    "Baby want the posey?"

     But the child seemed not to hear. Perhaps it was the noise of the moving car that prevented. Then she spoke a little louder, and held the flower forward temptingly:

     "Baby may have the posey:'

The mother heard, for she looked toward the other lady and smiled-and oh! such a look of heartfelt gratitude, of motherly love, yet heavily saddened with such an expressive tinge of sorrow as is seldom seen, and still the lady of the rose pressed upon the little one acceptance of the flower.

       "Baby, take the rose," holding it almost to the child's hands. And now it seemed she was heard, for the blue eyes turned full upon her would-be patron, and then, in a moment she strangely drew back and turned her eyes appealingly toward her mother's face. The lady with the flower showed her bewilderment in her look, while a pained expression flitted across the face of the mother, who leaned forward and whispered just a word:

       "My darling is blind!"

       Then the whole sunless, darkened life of the fair little being-fair as the flower which had been offered to her­ came up before the mind. All beauty shut from her forever! For her no foliage-strewn. flower-studded scene to follow the bleakness of winter. No looking with awe into the mysterious depths of the night sky, sparkling with glitter­ing. twinkling star-gems, for over those blue eyes the Creator, in the mystery of His designs, had hung the impenetrable veil. No expectant gaze toward the mother's face for the gentlest smile that ever soothes a childish trouble; only the blind passage of the little hand over and over those features, for one moment's sight of which that little one will often and often willingly offer years of existence. For her the birds will sing, but the loveliness of form and feather are not. For her, while the babbling stream may make mysterious music, its dimpled waves and winding reaches and verdant banks do not exist.

How vividly bitter all this as the lady opened the little hand and shut within it the thornless stem of the rose, now bearing a tear on its petals. And there were other swimming eyes in the car.

Utica, N. Y., Tribune.