Teuzer started! "Bl—blind, did you say?" he stammered, and quite shocked, he led the poor boy to the light—"Look at me, my child," he said.
"I cannot see you," spoke Raphael, softly as he turned his blind eyes towards Teuzer.
There is something very touching in such a look. Teuzer was deeply moved, and turned away as if to examine the stove but in reality to hide the tears which filled his eyes—"What a misfortune," he said at last, "and you have not told me of this, Madelaine. Has he been long blind?"
"Since his second year," replied Madame Tube.
"How did it happen?" asked Teuzer.
"We do not know; we perceived it when too late to have anything done; and in a short time he became quite blind."
"My boy," inquired Teuzer, "do you remember anything of the brightness of the sun, the blue of the sky, or the face of thy mother?"
Raphael shook his head slowly, and with a pensive air.
"You know nothing, then, of the beauty of the spring—the colors of the flowers—the whiteness of the snow—the—?"
Here the mother made a sign to Master Teuzer, who, seeing the boy look very sorrowful, ceased his lamentations, and said, "What is there, then, that gives you pleasure, my poor boy?"