Paula the Waldensian - Eva Lecomte

that seemed to be his chief pleasure, and I taught him to read. Victoria's
mother used to bring her work over to Mlle. Virtud's room and heard the
stories with great delight.
"If I had been able to leave my Victoria in school she would have
become as wise and learned as you, Mesdemoiselles," she would say a bit
sadly at times. "But there, I can't complain; what would we have done
without the money she earns at the factory?"
One afternoon we said good-bye to Gabriel and mounted the stairs to
visit the blind girl. Left alone for most of the day, she passed the long hours
knitting. She was about the same age as our Catalina, but she appeared to be
much older. The first time we had visited her, she had hardly raised her head
from her work, and showed but little interest in the stories that her mother
had asked us to read to her. It was not so much indifference as an apparent
incapacity to comprehend the meaning of what she heard. But on this
particular afternoon Paula started singing a hymn. The poor girl suddenly
dropped her work in her lap, and listened with rapt attention. When Paula
had finished she exclaimed "Oh, mamma! mamma! Tell her to please sing
again."
Mme. Bertin could not suppress a cry of delight as she said, "Dear
Mademoiselle Paula, please sing another song! Never have I seen my
Marguerite so happy." And so Paula sang hymn after hymn. As Paula at last
stopped singing, for the time had come to go home, poor Marguerite
stretched out her arms as if groping for something.
"Please do not be offended, Mademoiselle Paula," implored Madame
Bertin; "she wants you to come nearer that she may feel your face. The blind
have no other eyes." Paula kneeled at Marguerite's side and the blind girl
passed her hands gently over the upturned face, pausing an instant at the
broad forehead, then on over the beautiful arched brows and long eyelashes
146