riting?' says the doctor. 'Oh, yes, sir,
says I; 'she can read and write beautiful for a child of her age; my
husband taught her.' 'Get me paper and pen and ink directly,' says he
to the landlady; who went at once and got him what he wanted. 'We must
quiet her at all hazards,' says the doctor, 'or she'll excite herself
into another attack of fever. She feels what's the matter with her, but
don't understand it; and I'm going to tell her by means of this paper.
It's a risk,' he says, writing down on the paper in large letters, _You
Are Deaf;_ 'but I must try all I can do for her ears immediately; and
this will prepare her,' says he, going to the bed, and holding the paper
before her eyes.

"She shrank back on the pillow, as still as death, the instant she saw
it; but didn't cry, and looked more puzzled and astonished, I should
say, than distressed. But she was breathing dreadful quick--I felt that,
as I stooped down and kissed her. 'She's too young,' says the doctor,
'to know what the extent of her calamity really is. You stop here and
keep her quiet till I come back, for I trust the case is not hopeless
yet.' 'But whatever has made her deaf, sir?' says the landlady, opening
the door for him. 'The shock of that fall in the circus,' says he, going
out in a very great hurry. I thought I should never have held up my head
again, as I heard them words, looking at little Mary, with my arm round
her neck all the time.

"Well, sir, the doctor come back; and he syringed her ears first--and
that did no good. Then he tried blistering, and then he put on leeches;
and still it was no use. 'I'm afraid it is a hopeless case,' says he;
'but there's a doctor who's had more practice than I've had with deaf
people, who comes from where he lives to our Dispensary once a week.
To-morrow's his day, and I'll bring him here with me.'

"And he did bring this gentleman, as he promised he would--an old
gentleman, with such a pleasant way of speaking that I understood
everything he said to me directly. 'I'm afraid you must make up your
mind to the worst,' says he. 'I have been hearing about the poor child
from my friend who's attended her; and I'm sorry to say I don't think
there's much hope.' Then he goes to the bed and looks at her. 'Ah,' says
he, 'there's just the same expression in her face that I remember seeing
in a mason's boy--a patient of mine--who fell off a ladder, and lost his
hearing altogether by the shock. You don't hear what I'm sa