He expressed much sympathy, arranged everything for me in the most thoughtful way, and I went to bed—I little knew for how long! I despatched a note to my sister, and then active treatment commenced—the eyelids cauterised, leeches to the temple, cold compresses, ointment of belladonna, opium to the forehead, purgatives, footbaths, and sinapisms, with broth for diet. The eye was syringed every hour, and I realised the danger of the disease from the weapons employed against it. Poor Anna came down in the evening to sympathise with the 'inflamed eye' I had written about, and was dreadfully shocked. She has told me since how many times she hid behind the curtain to cry. My friendly young doctor came every two hours, day and night, to tend the eye, Mlle. Mallet acting in the alternate hours. The infirmary was kept profoundly quiet, and a guard appointed day and night. The sympathy was universal and deep, the élèves asking after me with tears. An unheard-of permission was granted to Anna to visit me three times a day. For three days this continued—then the disease had done its worst; and I learned from the tone of my friends that my eye was despaired of. Ah! how dreadful it was to find the daylight gradually fading as my kind doctor bent over me, and removed with an exquisite delicacy of touch the films that had formed over the pupil! I could see him for a moment clearly, but the sight soon vanished, and the eye was left in darkness.
For three weeks I lay in bed with both eyes closed, then the right eye began to open gradually, and I could get up and do little things for myself. How kind everybody was! I shall never forget it. Anna, with her faith in magnetism, came down regularly three times a day in rain and snow to sympathise and impart 'the vital fluid.' My friendship deepened for my young physician, and I planned a little present for his office. Madame Charrier
