When they went “down cellow,” as she called it, into Mr. Brooks’s house, Aunt Madge was surprised to see how bare it looked.  But Dotty Dimple need not have held her skirts so tightly about her, and brushed her elbow so carefully when it hit against the wall; for the house was as clean as hands could make it.

“Mrs. Brooks, I hope you will forgive me for coming down upon you with this little army,” said Mrs. Allen, with such a cheery smile that the sick man on the bed felt as if a flood of pure sunshine had burst into the room.  He was so tired of lying there, day after day, like a great rag baby, and so glad to see anybody, especially the good lady who, his wife said, was “so easy to talk to!”

“Auntie, look! see the freckled doggie; and there’s my flowers, true’s you live,” cried Flyaway.

“Yes, pa wanted them in a vial, close to his bed; it’s the first he’s seen this winter,” said Maria, stroking Fly as if she had been a kitten.

“You may be sure, little lady, it will be as I said; they’ll cure me full as quick as camphire.  And, thank the Lord, I can see as well as smell,” said Mr. Brooks, with a tender glance at Maria which made Horace feel ashamed of himself.  The idea of that poor child’s rubbing anything into her eyes?  Why, she looked like a wounded bird that had been out in a storm.  Her face was really almost beautiful, but so sad that you could not see it without a feeling of pity.

“She looks as if she was walking in her sleep,” thought Prudy, and turned away to hide a tear; for somehow there was a chord in her heart that thrilled strangely.  That “slow winter” came back to her with a rush, and she was sure she knew how Maria felt.

“She is blind, and I was lame; but it is the same kind of a feeling.  O, how I wish I could help her!”

Dotty was as sorry for Maria as she knew how to be, but she could not be as sorry as Prudy was; for she had never had any trouble greater than a sore throat.

“I don’t see why the tears don’t come into my eyes as easy as they do into Prudy’s,” thought she, trying to squeeze out a salt drop; “Mrs. Brooks’ll think I don’t care a speck; but I do care.”

As for wee Fly, she took Maria’s blindness to heart about as much as she did the murder of the Hebrew children off in Judea.

“Pitiful ’bout her seeingness; but I wished I had such a beauful dog!”

Aunt Madge was struck with the exalted expression of Maria’s face.  The child was only thirteen, but suffering had made her look much older.

“My child,” said she, putting her arm around the little girl, and drawing her towards her, “I know you see a great deal with your mind, even though your eyes are shut.  Now, do tell me all about your misfortune, and how it happened, for I came on purpose to hear.”

“Yes, we camed to purpose to hear,” said Fly, from the foot-board of the bed, where she had perched and prattled every moment since she came in.  “I founded Maria, and then I went up to her, and says I, ’Doggie, doggie!’”