“I think they would,” said Mrs. Brown.  “Why don’t you go over?”

“I will,” answered Mr. Brown.  “There isn’t much to do to-morrow, so I’ll go and take Bunny and Sue with me.  Would you like to go?” he asked Mart and Lucile.

They said they would, and the next day the five of them went over in Mr. Brown’s automobile.  Mr. Treadwell was invited, but he said he had to go to the hall to make sure all the scenery for the play was ready.

The Home for the Blind was in a big red brick building on the side of a hill about two miles across the valley from Bellemere.  It did not take long to get there in the automobile, for though there was snow on the ground the roads were good.

Mr. Harrison, the superintendent of the home, welcomed Mr. Brown and the children.

“Now please don’t think this is a sad place,” said Mr. Harrison.  “Though the men and women and the boys and girls here can not see, they get along very well, considering.  So don’t think it’s too sad.

“Of course it is sad enough, but it might be worse.  That’s what all our blind folk have come to think—­that it might be worse.  They have ways of ‘seeing,’ even if they have eyes that are no longer any use to them.  I just want you to go over our place, and then you will be more glad than ever, I hope, that you are going to help us with your little play.  For we need many things.  We need books, printed in the kind of type that the blind can read, and we need many things so that our blind men and women can work and make articles to sell.  The money you are going to give us from your play will help to buy these things.”

Then, indeed, Bunny Brown and his sister Sue were very glad they had decided to have a play, and they saw men and women and boys and girls who did not seem to be without their sight, for they went about almost as quickly as Bunny and Sue did.

“That’s because they have learned their way,” said Mr. Harrison.  “Our blind folks know their way around here just as you can walk around some parts of your house in the dark.”

He led them toward the music room, for there was one where the blind inmates played and sang, and as Mr. Brown and the children went through the door Lucile uttered a low cry at the sight of a man who was just getting up from the piano.

“Uncle Bill!” cried Lucile.  “Uncle Bill!  Oh, we have found you at last!”

CHAPTER XX

THE DRESS REHEARSAL

Bunny Brown, who had been listening to the piano music of the blind man, looked quickly at Lucile as she cried out about Uncle Bill.  For Bunny remembered how much the actress girl and her brother had wanted to find their blind uncle, so he might tell them where their other uncle and aunt were.

Sue just said:  “O-oh!”

“Uncle Bill!” cried Mart, in the same sort of wondering voice as had his sister.  “Yes, that’s our Uncle Bill!” he went on, as the blind man, who had been playing, came over toward them.  There was a strange look on his face, and except for a queer look about his eyes, one would hardly have known he was blind.