pages as those of a fresh leaf are transferred to the
blank sheets which inclose it. It was the same thing which I remember
seeing beautifully shown in a child of some four or five years we had one
day at our boarding-house. The child was a deaf mute. But its soul had
the inner sense that answers to hearing, and the shaping capacity which
through natural organs realizes itself in words. Only it had to talk
with its face alone; and such speaking eyes, such rapid alternations of
feeling and shifting expressions of thought as flitted over its face, I
have never seen in any other human countenance.

I wonder if something of spiritual transparency is not typified in the
golden-blonde organization. There are a great many little
creatures,--many small fishes, for instance,--which are literally
transparent, with the exception of some of the internal organs. The
heart can be seen beating as if in a case of clouded crystal. The
central nervous column with its sheath runs as a dark stripe through the
whole length of the diaphanous muscles of the body. Other little
creatures are so darkened with pigment that we can see only their
surface. Conspirators and poisoners are painted with black, beady-eyes
and swarthy hue; Judas, in Leonardo's picture, is the model of them all.

However this may be, I should say there never had been a book like this
of Iris,--so full of the heart's silent language, so transparent that the
heart itself could be seen beating through it. I should say there never
could have been such a book, but for one recollection, which is not
peculiar to myself, but is shared by a certain number of my former
townsmen. If you think I over-color this matter of the young girl's
book, hear this, which there are others, as I just said, besides myself,
will tell you is strictly true.

THE BOOK OF THE THREE MAIDEN SISTERS.

In the town called Cantabridge, now a city, water-veined and gas
windpiped, in the street running down to the Bridge, beyond which dwelt
Sally, told of in a book of a friend of mine, was of old a house
inhabited by three maidens. They left no near kinsfolk, I believe;
whether they did or not, I have no ill to speak of them; for they lived
and died in all good report and maidenly credit. The house they lived in
was of the small, gambrel-roofed cottage pattern, after the shape of
Esquires' houses, but after the size of the dwellings of handicraftsmen.
The lower story was fitted up as a shop. Sp