"But the face of their little daughter Raesel was still more touching.
I think I can see her now, with her flat horsehair cap and watered black
silk ribbons, her trim bodice and broad blue sash down to her knees,
her little white hands crossed in the attitude of a dreamer, her long
fair curls--all that was graceful, slender, and ethereal in nature. Yes,
I can see Raesel now, sitting in a large leathern arm-chair, close to the
blue curtain of the recess at the end of the room, smiling as she
listened and meditated.
"Her sweet face had charmed me from the first moment I saw her and I was
continually on the point of inquiring why she wore such an habitually
melancholy air, why did she hold her pale face down so invariably, and
why did she never raise her eyes when spoken to?
"Alas! the poor child had been blind from her birth.
"She had never seen the lake's vast expanse, nor its blue sheet
blending so harmoniously with the sky, the fishermen's boats which
ploughed its surface, the wooded heights which crowned it and cast
their quivering reflection on its waters, the rocks covered with moss,
the green Alpine plants in their vivid and brilliant colouring; nor had
she ever watched the sun set behind the glaciers, nor the long shades of
evening draw across the valleys, nor the golden broom, nor the endless
heather--nothing.
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