see you?"

And the girl replied with a smile, in a coarse, strange, dissonant
voice, like that of a savage who was speaking for the first time in our
language, but with a distinct pronunciation, "He is my fa-ther."

The gardener fell back a pace, and shrieked like a madman: "She speaks!
Is it possible! Is it possible! She speaks? Can you speak, my child? can
you speak? Say something to me: you can speak?" and he embraced her
afresh, and kissed her thrice on the brow. "But it is not with signs
that she talks, signora; it is not with her fingers? What does this
mean?"

"No, Signor Voggi," rejoined the teacher, "it is not with signs. That
was the old way. Here we teach the new method, the oral method. How is
it that you did not know it?"

"I knew nothing about it!" replied the gardener, lost in amazement. "I
have been abroad for the last three years. Oh, they wrote to me, and I
did not understand. I am a blockhead. Oh, my daughter, you understand
me, then? Do you hear my voice? Answer me: do you hear me? Do you hear
what I say?"

"Why, no, my good man," said the teacher; "she does not hear your voice,
because she is deaf. She understands from the movements of your lips
what the words are that you utter; this is the way the thing is managed;
but she does not hear your voice any more than she does the words which
she speaks to you; she pronounces them, because we have taught her,
letter by letter, how she must place her lips and move her tongue, and
what effort she must make with her chest and throat, in order to emit a
sound."

The gardener did not understand, and stood with his mouth wide open. He
did not yet believe it.

"Tell me, Gigia," he asked his daughter, whispering in her ear, "are you
glad that your father has come back?" and he raised his face again, and
stood awaiting her reply.

The girl looked at him thoughtfully, and said nothing.

Her father was perturbed.

The teacher laughed. Then she said: "My good man, she does not answer
you, because she did not see the movements of your lips: you spoke in
her ear! Repeat your question, keeping your face well before hers."

The father, gazing straight in her face, repeated, "Are you glad that
your father has come back? that he is not going away again?"

The girl, who had observed his lips attentively, seeking even to see
inside his mouth, replied frankly:--

"Yes, I am de-light-ed that you have re-turned, that you are not go-ing
a-way a-gain--nev-er a-g