t recollect at first; but when I did, it was
almost as bad as seeing the dreadful accident all over again.

"It was some time before any of us found out what had really happened.
The breaking of her arm, the doctor said, had saved her head; which was
only cut and bruised a little, not half as bad as was feared. Day after
day, and night after night, I sat by her bedside, comforting her through
her fever, and the pain of the splints on her arm, and never once
suspecting--no more, I believe, than she did--the awful misfortune that
had really happened. She was always wonderful quiet and silent for
a child, poor lamb, in little illnesses that she'd had before; and
somehow, I didn't wonder--at least, at first--why she never said a word,
and never answered me when I spoke to her.

"This went on, though, after she got better in her health; and a
strange look came over her eyes. They seemed to be always wondering and
frightened, in a confused way, about something or other. She took, too,
to rolling her head about restlessly from one side of the pillow to the
other; making a sort of muttering and humming now and then, but still
never seeming to notice or to care for anything I said to her. One day,
I was warming her a nice cup of beef-tea over the fire, when I heard,
quite sudden and quite plain, these words from where she lay on the bed,
'Why are you always so quiet here? Why doesn't somebody speak to me?'

"I knew there wasn't another soul in the room but the poor child at that
time; and yet, the voice as spoke those words was no more like little
Mary's voice, than my voice, sir, is like yours. It sounded, somehow,
hoarse and low, and deep and faint, all at the same time; the strangest,
shockingest voice to come from a child, who always used to speak so
clearly and prettily before, that ever I heard. If I was only cleverer
with my words, ma'am, and could tell you about it properly--but I
can't. I only know it gave me such a turn to hear her, that I upset the
beef-tea, and ran back in a fright to the bed. 'Why, Mary! Mary!' says
I, quite loud, 'are you so well already that you're trying to imitate
Mr. Jubber's gruff voice?'

"There was the same wondering look in her eyes--only wilder than I had
ever seen it yet--while I was speaking. When I'd done, she says in the
same strange way, 'Speak out, mother; I can't hear you when you whisper
like that.' She was as long saying these words, and bungled over them as
much, as if she was