Ever since the accident had happened, and the doctors had all pronounced the terrible decree that poor Dorothy would go through life totally blind, the poor old housekeeper had been maturing a plan in her head which she thought would be a world of comfort to the poor girl.
Mrs. Kemp had a niece whom she had kept at boarding-school all the girl's life, for she was an orphan, and she said to herself: "How grand a plan it would be to bring the girl to Gray Gables to be a companion to Dorothy until she marries!"
Her niece was a bright, gay creature, and would be just the one to cheer Dorothy up.
Mrs. Kemp concluded to put this plan into execution at once, as there was no one to say nay in regard to it, and she wrote to her niece to come on without delay, little dreaming that this one action would prove the curse of three lives—aye, the bitterest curse that ever wrung a human heart, and that heart poor, hapless Dorothy's.
Ah, me! how often in this world that which we mean for the greatest good turns out the source of the cruelest woe.
Dorothy heard of the plan, and agreed to it eagerly.
"Oh, thank you—thank you for the happy thought, Mrs. Kemp!" she cried; "for I am lonely—so pitifully lonely. Yes, I would give the world for a girl of my own age to be a companion to me until—until I marry Harry."
Kendal received the intelligence with a look of interest in his eyes.
"When does your niece come, Mrs. Kemp?" he inquired.
"I expect Iris to come to-morrow," she replied. And on the following afternoon Iris Vincent arrived.