PREFACE. These pages are the composition of a blind girl: they are committed by her with much diffidence to the world, after many days and nights of toil: they have served to beguile and render comparatively happy many hours of a life which would otherwise, perhaps, have been sad and melancholy, and to inspire her with emotions of gratitude to her Heavenly Father, that whilst it has pleased him to afflict, he hath not failed so to mingle the sweet with the bitter, as to realize to her in the midst of her affliction, much of the luxury of the life that is, and a hope that never falters for the life which is to come. She would bless his holy name that, sightless as she is, and although she may not look out upon "the heavens which declare his glory and the firmament which sheweth his handiwork," yet he hath not left her to isolation and dejection, but in his boundless love and mercy hath opened up to her mental vision the delights and en joyments which belong to contemplation and thoughtful exercise. These effusions are the fruit of this mental pastime. They now go forth from their privacy with such surroundings: if they may not command critical approval, may they not invoke its forbearance, and enlist the patronage of the generous and humane. The Golden Sunset, or the Homeless Blind Girl. 7 CHAPTER I. "Thou art, O God, the life and light Are but reflections, caught from Thee; Thoma's Moore. "Tis sweet to hear the watch-dog's honest bark Bay deep-mouth'd welcome as we draw near home; Byron. Gentle reader, this is one more offering thrown out upon the rough wavering sea of public opinion. Glance not upon it with a critic's eye, for it is the production of a simple girl, whose only aim is to gather flowers of sympathy and affection from those who are willing to lend a helping hand to ene whom |