pedestrianism always stimulated his brain. It was a bright, fresh morning, with a deeply blue sky, a cheerful sun shining and a keen, fresh wind blowing across the common onto which he strolled. The gorse was in bloom, and every breath of wind brought the odor of its peach-like scent to his nostrils. How often, in his Bohemian life had that odor recalled the wide, bare common with its miles of gorse-covered ground, and made him long half regretfully for the quiet country village where his youth had been passed.

But now that the common was actually before him, by some curious contradiction of nature he did not feel the least regret or longing for his youth, but on the contrary strolled over the waste ground, hatching all kinds of plots and plans in his busy brain. All at once, as he stood on the edge of a gentle slope, where the ground was hollowed out like a cup and surrounded by the dark green of the gorse with its golden blossoms, he saw a woman seated on a grassy bank, apparently basking in the sun. Her hands were lying idly in her lap, and with her face turned upward to the bright sunshine, she was drinking in the sweet, keen air which swept over the wild moorland. Beaumont saw that it was Cecilia Mosser who sat there, and for a moment half envied the blind girl in spite of her great sorrow, for her pleasant enjoyment of nature.

"She looks like the Goddess of Desolation," murmured Beaumont, as he descended the slope, "or some eyeless Destiny that sees nothing, yet governs all!"

Lightly as he walked over the soft, green grass, the blind girl heard the sound of his muffled footsteps, and turned her face in the direction from whence she heard them come, with a questioning look on her placid face.

"How do you do, Miss Mosser?" said Beaumont, tranquilly. "I was taking a stroll on the common, and saw you sitting here alone, like the Genius of Solitude."

"I often come here," observed Cecilia, placidly, folding her hands. "This is a favorite spot of mine--I know every inch of the way."

"You are not afraid of losing yourself?"

"I was at first," said the blind girl, with a quiet laugh, "but I soon got to know my way about. I could find my way here on the darkest night."

"Like Bulwer Lytton's Nydia," remarked Beaumont, idly casting himself down on the grass.

"Yes. Like her, it is always darkest night with me," replied Cecilia, with a sigh. "Still, I have my 

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