“Who’s to be blind man first?” cried the girls.

“Edwin:  that will be the best fun,” the boys said.

“Very well, I sha’n’t be long blind,” said Edwin:  “I shall soon catch some of you.  Who’ll tie the handkerchief?”

“Bessie:  she always ties it.  Go and kneel to her, and she’ll tie it so that you won’t see.”

What must Mr. Forrester have felt while being blinded by the Rose?  Only, he had long been accustomed to be if not blinded, at least dazed, by her.  The boys led him into the middle of the floor and dispersed themselves into corners.  While he stood in the attitude of listening intently, he was conscious of a very gentle movement near him, and instantly closed his arms round it, as he thought, and encountered empty air, while with a shout of laughter the children cried, “Bessie was too quick for you.  There, quick! quick!  Edwin!” He sprang to the corner the voices came from, and the boys rushed along the wall to avoid his arms spread out to catch them, when suddenly the doorbell rang.

At the sound Edwin put up his hand to take off the handkerchief, but the boys cried, “Don’t take it off:  if it’s any one, Bessie can speak to them in the dining-room:  we don’t need to stop our game.”

They were not aware that to Mr. Forrester the game without Bessie was like Hamlet with the part of Hamlet left out.

“Yes,” said Bessie, “just go on, and I’ll see who is at the door.”  As she left the kitchen she honored Mr. Forrester with a good long look:  people can feel so much at ease looking at a blind person.

The door was chained for greater security, and Bessie did not take off the chain:  she merely opened the door as far as it would open, but seeing no one, she opened it fully and went out on the steps; still she saw no person, although she thought whoever rang the bell had not had time to get out of sight.  Waiting a little without result, she went back to the kitchen.

“Who was it?” cried the children.

“No one,” she said.

“But the bell rang,” said John.

“Of course it did,” Will corroborated.

“And somebody must have rung it,” John said.

“Some one for a trick, I suppose,” Bessie said, “although I don’t know how he disappeared so fast.”

Without further remark the game was resumed.  Edwin had caught John, and John had caught Bessie, and when he was putting the handkerchief round her eyes Mr. Forrester said, “You are making it far too tight, John:  you are hurting your sister.”

“No fear,” said John:  “none of us have soft heads here.  Is it too tight, Bessie?”

“Rather, but I can bear it:  go on.”

“I’ll slacken it first,” Edwin said.

“Thank you, that will do.  Now move off or I’ll catch you.”  She went very vigorously to work, and sent them all flying round the kitchen, when the bell rang, and rang loudly, again.

John darted to the door and flung it wide, sure that he would see the person who rang it, whether running away or not; but there was no one, and the whole party followed him out, and they surveyed round and round, but all was still and quiet and vacant, the moonlight making it impossible that any figure should be there without being seen.