Logs of green wood that quench the coals,
    Are married just like sordid souls;
    With osiers for a bend.

To her I am indebted for many a dark and tearful hour, when not only my heart, but my eyes, needed perfect repose.

But beside this thorn-tree in the home garden bloomed for me, and for all, a beautiful flower, in the person of her niece, Josie McMath, who, with her loving, gentle touch, toned down the inequalities and smiled away the frowns.

She and I became fast friends, and afterward freely exchanged confidences, telling to each other a mutual tale of girlish hope and trustful affection.

During my stay in Ypsilanti I received a letter from Rachel Weaver, who had been bereft of her mother and had lost every means of support.  She earnestly desired to return to me; and as the letter brought with it the magnetism of a former attachment, I wrote to her to come to me.

Finding the prospect of recovery through my present treatment hopeless, I went to Ionia, Michigan, repairing to the house of Dr. Baird, where I awaited tidings of Rachel Weaver, and whom I met at Detroit, when we returned to Chicago, where I was met by Mr. Arms, and who, soon as an opportunity offered, rehearsed to me the workings of his own mind during my absence.

He told me he had been seriously thinking over the matter, and after carefully reviewing his own feelings he could arrive at but one conclusion, viz, that I had become necessary to his happiness, and that he hoped for a mutual plan for speedy union.

He owned a farm in Iowa, which he proposed to sell, and invest the proceeds in a home in Chicago.

He also begged a promise that I would never make another attempt to recover my sight, which gave me an assurance that my blindness was no barrier to his love.

With a strange flutter of emotion my heart responded to his sweet assurances, and, as a weary child confidingly rests upon its mother’s breast, so did my tired soul trustingly repose in the safe haven of his manly love, and cast its anchor there! safe amid the lowering clouds of life, serene amid its surging seas and wildest waves; for arching all was the Iris of bright-hued hope.

CHAPTER XI.

    “Visions come and go;
      Shapes of resplendent beauty round me throng;
    From angels’ lips I seem to hear the flow
      Of soft and holy song.”

    “’Tis nothing now—­
      When heaven is opening on my sightless eyes,
    When airs from paradise refresh my brow,
      That earth in darkness lies.”

Leaving Chicago I traveled via Michigan Southern Railroad to the little town of Jonesville, Michigan, the home of my childhood and the scene of so many fond and sad recollections.