After a few weeks spent in the company of Eugene and Annie, Mrs. Godfrey rallied somewhat, and the physicians prescribed change of air. Her insanity had somewhat subsided, but she was now dull and stupid, utterly unlike her former self, and her illness had affected her limbs also so that she was obliged to be wheeled in a chaise-longue from one place to another.
The place chosen for their new abode was a lone house within half a mile of the sea-coast, the road to which lay in a beautiful valley between two hills of considerable elevation. On the highest of these was a light-house, which gave warning of the perilous nature of the coast, while the neat little white dwellings of the coast-guardsmen, at the foot of the hill, betokened that this was a locality famed for smuggling excursions. Mrs. Godfrey was often laid on a couch placed on wheels, and drawn by hand to the beach on the sea-shore. The murmur [{614}] of the waves seemed to soothe her; and though she spoke very little, she seemed by slow degrees to be recovering her faculties, and now and then listened to the subjects discussed by her children, Eugene and Annie, who were seldom away from her, and who took work or study to the seaside, that they might while away the long hours of attendance. After a little time they observed that when the weather was pleasant an old blind woman was often led from one of the cottages to a pleasant seat beneath the cliff, and that the two or three children who played near her seemed to regard her with equal reverence and affection.
The old woman knitted in the sunshine, now and then interrupting her work to tell her beads or relate short stories to the young ones. In the evening a tidy young woman, of most pleasing appearance, would come to lead the blind woman home. This happened so often that the faces became familiar, and Mrs. Godfrey began to watch for them as for interesting objects, and at length she also began to wish to form their acquaintance. One afternoon she had her chaise-longue wheeled up to the side of the blind woman, and kindly inquired after her health.
"I am well, madam. Thanks for your inquiry," was the reply.
"And is this your daughter?" asked Annie, pointing to the young woman who was just come to lead her home.
"She is my son's wife, thanks be to God, and sure no daughter of my own could be better to me, who am but a burden to them all."
"Don't talk of burden, mother dear," said the young woman. "Sure, what should we do without you? Don't you teach the children their prayers and their catechism, and without you shouldn't we be almost like the heathens in this land of—" She paused and colored.
"Heresy," suggested Eugene, as if concluding the sentence for her.
"No offence, sir, I hope," courtesied the woman.
Eugene took up the old woman's beads which had fallen to the ground, reverently touched the cross with his lips, and restored them to her. "No offence at all," said he. "This is a land of heresy and of infidelity, and it cheers us to find out now and then one who continues faithful to the truth. Where do you live?"