Muriel came down-stairs triumphantly in her father's arms, and lay on the sofa smiling; the firelight dancing on her small white face—white and unscarred. The disease had been kind to the blind child; she was, I think, more sweet-looking than ever. Older, perhaps; the round prettiness of childhood gone—but her whole appearance wore that inexpressible expression, in which, for want of a suitable word, we all embody our vague notions of the unknown world, and call "angelic."
"Does Muriel feel quite well—quite strong and well?" the father and mother both kept saying every now and then, as they looked at her. She always answered, "Quite well."
In the afternoon, when the boys were playing in the kitchen, and John and I were standing at the open door, listening to the dropping of the rain in the garden, we heard, after its long silence, Muriel's "voice."
"Father, listen!" whispered the mother, linking her arm through his as he stood at the door. Soft and slow came the notes of the old harpsichord—she was playing one of the abbey anthems. Then it melted away into melodies we knew not—sweet and strange. Her parents looked at one another—their hearts were full of thankfulness and joy.
"And Mary Baines's little lad is in the churchyard."
CHAPTER XXVI
"What a comfort! the day-light is lengthening. I think this has been the very dreariest winter I ever knew. Has it not, my little daughter? Who brought her these violets?"
And John placed himself on a corner of my own particular armchair, where, somehow or other, Muriel always lay curled up at tea-time now—(ay, and many hours in the day-time, though we hardly noticed it at first). Taking between his hands the little face, which broke into smiles at the merest touch of the father's fingers, he asked her "when she intended to go a walk with him?"
"To-morrow."