The old man's face changed. "Are you lonely, dear?"
"Lonely?" repeated Barbara, laughing; "why I don't even know what the word means. I have you and my books and my sewing and these letters to write, and I can sit in the window and nod to people who go by—how could I be lonely, Daddy?"
"I want you to be happy, dear."
"So I am," returned the girl, trying hard to make her voice even. "With you, and everything a girl could want, why shouldn't I be happy?"
Miriam went out, closing the door quietly, and the blind man drew his chair very near to Barbara.
Dreaming
"I dream," he said, "and I keep on dreaming that you can walk and I can see. What do you suppose it means? I never dreamed it before."
"We all have dreams, Daddy. I've had the same one very often ever since I was a little child. It's about a tower made of cologne bottles, with a cupola of lovely glass arches, built on the white sand by the blue sea. Inside is a winding stairway hung with tapestries, leading to the cupola where the golden bells are. There are lovely rooms on every floor, and you can stop wherever you please."
"It sounds like a song," he mused.
"Perhaps it is. Can't you make one of it?"