OR, THE BLIND GIRL. WITH OTHER TALE S. BY MRS. EMMA C. EMBURY. PUBLISHED FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE NEW-YORK INSTITUTION FOR THE INSTRUCTION OF THE BLIND. NEW-YORK: HARPER & BROTHERS, 82 CLIFF-ST. 1838. Entered, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1837, by HARPER & BROTHERS, in the Clerk's Office of the Southern District of New-York. PREFACE. THE ladies of Brooklyn having been solicited to furnish materials to the Annual Fair held for the benefit of the New-York Institution for the Blind, the first tale in this little volume was written in order to be presented to the managers as a novel, and therefore, perhaps, saleable kind of fancy-work. The plan of the tale rendered it necessary to antedate the establishment of that excellent charity; but this scarcely needs a more serious apology than that offered by the humourist who insisted on having his portrait made to appear twenty years younger than himself, alleging, as a sufficient reason, that, "though not painted at an earlier period, it ought to have been." At the suggestion of the publishers, who considered that a somewhat larger work would better answer the purpose for which it was designed, two other tales were appended, one of which has already appeared in print, but, as illustrative of the folly of "heaping up riches when we know not who shall come after A 2 |