Page:Blind Allan (1).pdf/13

13 and his own partook of the marriage feast in their cottage———there was the sound of music and dancing feet on the little green plat at the foot of the garden, by the river's side———the bride's youngest sister, who was henceforth to be an inmate of the house, remained when the party went away in the quiet of the evening--and peace, contentment and love, folded their wings together over that humble dwelling.

From that day Allan and his wife were perfectly happy--and they could not help wondering at their former fears. There was, at once, a general determination formed all over the parish to do them every benefit. Fanny, who had always been distinguished for her skill and fancy as a seamstress became now quite the fashionable dress-maker of the village, and had more employment offered than she could accept. So that her industry alone was more than sufficient for all their present wants. But Allan, though blind, was not idle. He immediately began to instruct himself in various departments of a blind man's work.———A loom was purchased; and in a few weeks he was heard singing to the sound of his fly-shuttle as merry as the bullfinch in the cage that hung at the low window of his room. He was not-long in finding out the way of platting rush-rugs and wicker-baskets———the figures of all of which were soon, as it were, visible through his very fingers; and before six months