On this path, her cane was almost unnecessary, for she knew it as well as she knew her parents’ home a few hundred yards to the south. The path she walked today was one of her favorites, winding along the edge of a bluff above the sea.
Now she heard things no one else heard, smelled perfumes in the sea air that would have been strange to anyone but her, and knew the flowers and the trees by how they felt. What had been seen was now only dimly remembered, and her dependence on her eyes was completely forgotten. It had been difficult at first, but when it had come upon her she had still been young enough that her adjustment was almost natural. Yet she had accepted her affliction as she accepted everything - quietly, peacefully - gifts from a God whose motives might seem clouded, but whose wisdom was not to be questioned. She was a solitary child her blindness set her apart and placed her in a dark world from which she knew there would be no escape.
Only her face was young, serene, and unlined, her sightless eyes often seeming to see that which was invisible to those around her.
From a distance, in her black dress and her bonnet, she looked more like an old woman than a child of twelve, and the walking stick she always carried with her did nothing to lessen the impression of age. The path was familiar to her, and she knew almost by instinct when to move to the left, when to veer to the right, when to stay close to the middle of the trail. She moved slowly along the path, her step careful, yet not hesitant.
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