Albertina is filled with the rhythm and poetry of grace and motion. She is a celebrated dancer whose fame is widespread. She has overtaxed her strength, is forbidden to appear in public and is obliged to seek quiet and rest. She retires to her Aunt Mary's home, a beautiful and restful country place, where she secures the much-needed seclusion and comfort. Next door to Aunt Mary there lives a very handsome fellow who has often admired Aunt Mary's niece and to tell the truth she admires him. Growing restless under the enforced retirement, Albertina strolls down to the lake where the water-lilies grow. She pulls a number of them into a garland which she holds bewitchingly above her head. They give her an inspiration and involuntarily she pirouettes, bends and swerves her lithe and willowy form like a nymph of ethereal sweetness. The young man who lives next door is rowing upon the lake; he see Albertina dancing on the velvety field of grass, is charmed by her, and rushes toward her. She trips lightly away from him, like a thistle-down wafted by some gentle zephyr. Following, he takes her in his arms and from that moment they are held by Cupid's bonds. Fates are sometimes kind and sometimes harsh; in this instance fate has decreed that Maurice suffer blindness from a lightning strike, which flashes into his eye as he stands enchanted, gazing out of the window at a gathering storm. Albertina hears of his affliction and declares her undying love for him. But he will not have her engage herself to him, blind and helpless, and sacrifice her life for his, so he sacrifices his happiness by declaring that he does not love her. Broken-hearted she returns to the city and again takes up her public career as an exponent of Terpsichore and Delarte, gaining fresh laurels and making new triumphs; these divert but do not lessen her love for Maurice. After one of her exhibitions, a child presents her with a bunch of water lilies; her heart leaps within her and she resolved to return to her blind lover. She goes back to her Aunt Mary's, asks first for Maurice, then wanders down to where the water lilies will remind her of sweet memories of the past. There she finds him groping his way to the symbols of her constancy and love. She glides toward him, he hears her voice and they walk into each other's outstretched arms.