very estimable lady sat so closely to us..... It produced an impression on my eye, it puzzled me that it was natural for this lady to be very lovely, placid in her personal appearance and manner."

The testimony of her writings is in a degree conflicting, but this much at least seems clear: she knew that sight was a sense which perceived objects at a distance. and that the eyes must be turned in the direction of the objects to see them. She possibly thought sight was something like touch, and when seeing is reduced to the distinguishing of light and darkness, it certainly has great likeness to the temperature section of that sense. When her friends did not seem to notice some new part of her clothing, she placed their hands upon it, as was her custom in showing things to the blind. But to her mind this resemblance did not extend to a restriction of the range of vision. She seems to have had enough conception of light to understand the reason for day and night when the thing was illustrated by a ball hung before the fire. In short, and this is about all her writings show in the matter, though her conception of the sense was vague in its detail, she was not blindminded.

For a conjecture as to her notion of the the sense of hearing, there are even fewer data than for that of sight. In the stories which she wrote out from memory, she often had occasion to tell how one and another heard, and she uses the words correctly. But in the matter of her own composing, she speaks of hearing less freely than of seeing. She knew it, however, as a sense that her teachers and others possessed. She refers to their going to hear music; she knew that she must move silently, if she wished not to waken sleepers; she knew that others could be summoned by calling. Once being told of the great distance at which the roar of Niagara could be heard, she asked if it could be heard where she then But altogether there seems to be

was.

nothing to show that she had any idea of sound as sound, or of hearing as a sense. It is worth noticing in passing that though the contribution that Laura's writings make to our knowledge of her ideas of the senses of sight and hearing is so small, nevertheless what evidence there is concurs with what might have been argued a priori from the fact that her sight did not altogether fail till fully four years after she ceased to hear.

The office of the sense of hearing was in part performed by her extremely delicate perception of vibrations. perception of vibrations. To use her own expression, she heard with her feet. In 1850 she writes: "I placed a little chair before me. I put the musical box on it so I could feel it play with my feet [on the rounds. of the chair]." She had a watch of some sort, of which she says: [1848] "As [when or although] I was extre sound asleep the watch aroused me from slumber. It makes much louder noise than usual, for it was thoroughly repaired accurately [just?] last week." But a few days earlier she says: "I felt the watch ring at 4 o'clock." Her feeling for such vibration was so acute that sitting once in a room where two persons were conversing she got knowledge of the fact from the vibrations caused by their voices, and at another time she noticed the resemblance of the heavy voice of a lady friend to that of a man.

The correlative of hearing is speech. In the ordinary sense of the word Laura had no vocal language, but she had in fact a large number of sounds by which she designated persons of her acquaintance. They had to her mind a certain fitness in each case and served in a degree for proper names with appropriate adjectives. She had besides certain emotional sounds of the nature of interjections. All of these she unfailingly distinguished, but not as sounds; they stood to her as muscular adjustments and accompanying vibrations. She writes of laughing or crying loud, which only means with explosive breathing and forceful vibration in

the throat. That she had any true idea of the letters as signs of sound seems improbable, at least, when the following journal entry was made. "I talked with my mouth mother and father and baby and abby." What she really pronounced was "ma" and "pa" or "mamma" and "papa."

The language of the other senses, taste, smell, touch, besides that of the internal sensations (heart-ache and the like), is used by Laura, but need not detain us further than to mention that touch, especially the temperature sense, fills a large place in it.

Another interesting question is whether or not Laura brought through her early sickness any recollection of the time before it. If by recollection is meant conscious and definite reproduction, it is quite certain that she recollected nothing; few normal people remember anything that happened before they were twenty-eight months old. Her earliest real recollection, according to Dr. Howe, was that of lying in her mother's arms and taking medicine, probably during her convalescence. Another more indefinite and unconscious kind of memory-one perhaps more likely to survive the shock of sickness, but less easy to demonstrate-is found in a ready understanding of certain optical ideas, like perspective, in the preservation of certain gestures, and in otherwise unaccountable preferences and the like. No one of course can say certainly that her comprehension of the matters of sight was not the result of experience later than her sickness, till it can be known exactly how well her sight was preserved while it remained. If it was at no time better than it was a few months before she went to Boston, she could have learned little from it. She can, however, understand that it is impossible to see the opposite sides of a house at the same time, a thing that often puzzles those born blind. A case of the second, preserved gesture, is found in the nod or shake of the head which Laura used like others in affirming or denying. This is

something which children learn when very young, and she probably had picked it up by imitation before she was two years old. A case of the third, unaccountable preference, seems to me to be found in her liking after her sickness for the little hymn-book, which had been her plaything before, and the word for which she had learned to pro

nounce.

The general features of Laura's mind have been sufficiently brought out by what has gone before, but it will be interesting perhaps, to follow particular powers further. Imagination, for example, was exhibited in a certain degree by some of Laura's plays, both before and after she went to the Institute. Her journals when she was about eighteen or twenty years old show a considerable development of this faculty in a more conscious form. She amused herself at times by the thought of flying; once she works out in some detail a plan for giving gas to her brother and treating his disabled eyes, and concludes by saying: "I enjoyed building such an incredible castle in the air very much."

Related to the power of imagination is that of understanding and using figurative language. But she had herself difficulty sometimes in knowing what was meant by it. In 1849 she writes of a friend: "I fear that it would consume my body and my spirits, if she delays too long writing to me. She could feed my poor heart and mind;" and then adds in explanation: "I love to write such figurative sentences to make my friend puzzle out."

Though not understanding a joke readily, Laura nevertheless, has a sense of the ludi

Dr. Francis Lieber in a paper on the Vocal Sounds of Laura Bridgman, Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge, Vol. II. Art. 2, takes exactly the opposite ground. He says: "Laura constantly accompanies her yes with the affirmative nod, and her no with our negative shake of the head. Both are with her in the strictest sense primitive symphenomena of the ideas of affirmation and negation, and not symphenomena which have gradually become such by unconscious imitation, as frequently may be the case with us." Both caution and modesty would forbid a difference of opinion with a scholar of such eminence, but the explanation which I have given seems to me the more natural and probable. Why should she not nod up like a Greek?

In certain provinces of France the young girls have an innocent and pretty custom amongst themselves. Christmas eve, on returning from midnight mass, each maiden plucks a sprig of apple tree, which she places in a vial of water and hangs in her chamber window. If by Easter the sprig bears a blossom, it foretells the happy maiden's speedy marriage.

Christmas eve, some fifty years ago, the inhabitants of one of these simple provinces were returning from midnight mass. The elderly matrons, as they passed out of the church, cast disapproving glances at a party of merry youths and maidens--the servants of a neighboring château-who, as they tripped along the frosted road, sang rousing choruses and filled the air with peals of ringing laughter. What cared they for the sharp night air and the snow-covered hedges? The heavens were bright with twinkling stars, and their light feet danced over the crisp snow.

There was Marie, the cook, and Pierre, the coachman, as jolly a couple as ever you saw; behind them came a train of pretty maids with their sweet-hearts--bold, handsome lads; bright, laughing lasses. Of all the gay company, one alone was without a companion. It was litttle Margot, the poorest and humblest of them allso poor that she had not a pair of silver earrings to bring her husband as a wedding dowry; so humble, that she walked far behind the others, like an outcast.

If the starlight had been brighter, you would have seen how fair a face was hidden beneath the hood that covered Margot's drooping head; you would have seen, too, tears falling from the heavy downcast eyes. Three months ago, on Margot's sixteenth birthday, the good curé had taken her from

the asylum, where all her life had been spent until then, and had brought her to the château on the hillside. Margot's sweet face and gentle manners so pleased the great lady of the castle that she decided to take the orphan child under her protection. She exchanged Margot's heavy sabots for dainty high-heeled slippers, and placed on her beautiful head a cap of fine muslin and lace; she then gave her gentle work to dosuch as befitted a child of her tender years— and Margot became henceforth an inmate of the château.

But the humble child was very lonely in her new home; she often sighed for the simple friends of her convent days; though she was fair in her fresh young beauty as a spring morning, no one had ever told her SO. When the jealous maid-servants refused to talk to her, or cast scornful glances at her from over their shoulder, she bowed her head and asked the good God to make her more worthy of the love and respect of her companions. Margot's heart ached for a little human love. To be sure, Baptiste, the butler, had always a word for her pretty face, and Jean, the footman, heaved eloquent sighs whenever she passed; but Margot's heart craved better love than that. She gave no answering smile to the sighs. and glances of her would-be admirers, until, smarting under the neglect, they deserted her for lasses with more responsive hearts.

All during the holy mass Margot's thoughts had drifted to her lonely self, to dwell upon a secret buried deep down in her innocent heart. It was the same sad thoughts that filled her eyes with tears and heaved her bosom with tremulous sighs, as she walked slowly behind the others this peaceful Christmas eve.

They were now close by the orchard of

Père Dubois; each laughing maiden as she passed plucked a sprig of the old apple tree, whose brown leafless branches hung far out over the roadside. Margot's heart

gave a sudden throb when she too stood in the shadow of the great tree. Though she was so poor and humble, she was a woman after all; why should not she have an apple sprig too? She was far behind the others; no one would ever know.

Alas! alas! barely had Margot's trembling fingers snapped off the brittle twig, when the sharp ears of Angèle, my lady's black-eyed maid, caught the tell-tale sound, and she whispered to her companion, the grave, handsome Jacques, that the little beggar, Margot, had actually plucked a sprig of the apple tree. The idea of Margot daring to dream of a husband! The news was too good to keep; Angèle soon told it to the others, and by the time they reached the château, everybody was laughing over Margot's unfortunate act.

The innocent child, thinking her secret safely hidden under the long cloak, passed by unheeded the scornful smiles that greeted her. The unkind words she heard served but to hasten her steps towards the only refuge she possessed-her little bed-chamber, perched high up as a bird's nest under the roof of the old stone tower. There, safe from prying eyes and sharp tongues, Margot brought forth her treasure; only a little brown apple sprig, as barren of leaves and blossoms as Margot's own loveless life. Margot felt like one committing a crime, as she put the branch in water and hung it in the lattice window, where the sun would kiss it all day long, and the fair moon would bathe it in her silvery light. What right had such as she to dream of lovers or husbands?"

When Margot had finished her preparations for bed, she knelt down before a statue of the Holy Mother to repeat her evening prayers. But it was hard to pray that night. A grave face, with tender blue

eyes, would thrust itself between Margot and her prayers. But being a pious child, she begged heaven's forgiveness for such awful distractions, and, creeping into bed, she fell asleep with her blessed beads clasped close to her breast.

When Margot awoke next morning, the first thing her eyes fell upon was the apple sprig swinging in the sunny window. But she had no time to lie dreaming; there was work for her to do. Her charge was to fill the urns and vases of the great drawingrooms with fresh flowers from the hothouses.

Margot must have dearly loved her work, for when she stood ready, basket in hand, at the door of the conservatory, her face was smiling and her beautiful eyes were soft with a tender light.

Ah! foolish little Margot; maidens' cheeks don't blush for flowers and their eyes don't glow at the sight of green leaves. Jacques-the grave, handsome Jacques--was guardian of all the wealth of plants and flowers, for which the château was famous. Jacques was far too grand for a simple child like Margot; he was tall, broad-shouldered, and strong; his eyes were blue as forget-me-nots, and the hair that covered his sun-burned cheeks was of the rich red-brown one sees in autumn leaves. Margot's eyes were deep as the purple pansies Jacques nursed with such tender care, and her hair was bright as their golden centers; she was lithe as a willow-wand and her pretty head reached no higher than Jacques's brave heart--that heart, alas! too far above Margot's own to hear its passionate beating.

Margot hid behind the broad leaves of a tropical plant, where she could watch unseen the form her soul loved. Jacques stood on a high ladder, cutting-bunches of purple grapes from the over-laden vines; his dark blue flannel cap was pushed back from his forehead, about which the crisp hair clung in tiny moist waves. Could any maiden ask for a nobler sight?

But, ah me! gazing at Jacques's handsome