THE

BLIND SCHOOLMISTRESS.

A TRUE STORY.

By J. J.

LONDON:

PARTRIDGE AND CO., PATERNOSTER ROW.

1860.

249. E. 61.

PREFACE.

THE individual who forms the subject of this simple narrative, is worthy of remembrance for her piety and usefulness, and affords an example of energy (under the most unfavourable circumstances) not often recorded. Those who love to listen to relations of virtue in lowly life, will be pleased with the character and efforts of the blind schoolmistress of

our village.

ST. VALENTINE'S DAY, 1859.

THE BLIND SCHOOLMISTRESS.

CHAPTER I.

THE VILLAGE INN, ETC.

It was a lovely summer evening. A group of peasants were assembled around the door of the little inn, at that time the only one in our village; the topic of conversation being a famous victory, the period being the early part of the present century, when wars and rumours of wars were everywhere so rife.

The last light of the sun still lingered on the gray tops of the hills. A misty gloom was spreading over the valleys, when the carrier's waggon halted at the inn to set down two passengers, weary and worn as the poor beasts that had brought them from a fardistant city. The strangers were a woman about middle age, and a little girl of tender years, whose circumstances were more painful than can be readily conceived by those whose lives have been unclouded by the cares which surround the path of indigence and neglect. The elder stranger was of interesting appearance, rendered somewhat novel by head-gear after the