baby and I am sure you
will love [her]. Now I must tell my gentle poet good-bye, for I have a
letter to write home before I go to bed. From your loving little friend,
HELEN A. KELLER.

The reading of this letter made many eyes glisten, and a dead silence
hushed the whole circle. All at once Delilah, our pretty table-maid,
forgot her place,--what business had she to be listening to our
conversation and reading?--and began sobbing, just as if she had been a
lady. She could n't help it, she explained afterwards,--she had a little
blind sister at the asylum, who had told her about Helen's reading to the
children.

It was very awkward, this breaking-down of our pretty Delilah, for one
girl crying will sometimes set off a whole row of others,--it is as
hazardous as lighting one cracker in a bunch. The two Annexes hurried
out their pocket-handkerchiefs, and I almost expected a semi-hysteric
cataclysm. At this critical moment Number Five called Delilah to her,
looked into her face with those calm eyes of hers, and spoke a few soft
words. Was Number Five forgetful, too? Did she not remember the
difference of their position? I suppose so. But she quieted the poor
handmaiden as simply and easily as a nursing mother quiets her unweaned
baby. Why are we not all in love with Number Five? Perhaps we are. At
any rate, I suspect the Professor. When we all get quiet, I will touch
him up about that visit she promised to make to his laboratory.

I got a chance at last to speak privately with him.

"Did Number Five go to meet you in your laboratory, as she talked of
doing?"

"Oh, yes, of course she did,--why, she said she would!"

"Oh, to be sure. Do tell me what she wanted in your laboratory."

"She wanted me to burn a diamond for her."

"Burn a diamond! What was that for? Because Cleopatra swallowed a
pearl?"

"No, nothing of that kind. It was a small stone, and had a flaw in it.
Number Five said she did n't want a diamond with a flaw in it, and that
she did want to see how a diamond would burn."

"Was that all that happened?"

"That was all. She brought the two Annexes with her, and I gave my three
visitors a lecture on carbon, which they seemed to enjoy very much."

I looked steadily in the Professor's face during the reading of the
following poem. I saw no questionable look upon it,--but he has a
remarkable command of his features. Number Five read it with a certain
archness of expression, as if she saw all its meaning,