Chapter 45 - Page 2

severest emphasis, Miss Batchford rose another inch, and sailed majestically out of the room.

Grosse took no notice of the offended lady: he only put his hands in his pockets, and looked out of window once more. As the door closed, Oscar left the corner in which he had seated himself, not over-graciously, when we entered the room.

"Am I wanted here?" he asked.

Grosse was on the point of answering the question even less amiably than it had been put--when I stopped him by a look. "I want to speak to you," I whispered in his ear. He nodded, and, turning sharply to Oscar, put this question to him:

"Are you living in the house?"

"I am staying at the hotel at the corner."

"Go to the hotel, and wait there till I come to you."

Greatly to my surprise, Oscar submitted to be treated in this peremptory manner. He took his leave of me silently, and left the room. Grosse drew a chair close to mine, and sat down by me in a comforting confidential fatherly way.

"Now my goot-girls," he said. "What have you been fretting yourself about since I was last in this house? Open it all, if you please, to Papa Grosse. Come begin-begin!"

I suppose he had exhausted his ill-temper on my aunt and Oscar. He said those words--more than kindly--almost tenderly. His fierce eyes seemed to soften behind his spectacles; he took my hand and patted it to encourage me.

There are some things written in these pages of mine which it was, of course, impossible for me to confide to him. With those necessary reservations--and without entering on the painful subject of my altered relations with Madame Pratolungo--I owned quite frankly how sadly changed I felt myself to be towards Oscar, and how much less happy I was with him, in consequence of the change. "I am not ill as you suppose," I explained. "I am only disappointed in myself, and a little downhearted when I think of the future." Having opened it to him in this way, I thought it time to put the question which I had determined to ask when I next saw him.

"The restoration of my sight," I said, "has made a new being of me. In gaining the sense of seeing, have I lost the sense of feeling which I had when I was blind? I want to know if it will come back when I have got used to the novelty of my position? I want to know if I shall ever enjoy Oscar's society again, as I used to enjoy it in the old days before you cured me--the happy days, Papa-Grosse, when I was an object of pity, and when all the people spoke of me as Poor Miss Finch?"

I had more to say--but at this place, Grosse (without meaning it, I am sure) suddenly stopped me. To my amazement, he let go of my hand, and turned his face away sharply, as if he resented my looking at him. His big head sank on his breast. He lifted his great hairy hands,