u please, ma'am, to have the slate
always hanging at her side. Poor dear! she thought it quite a splendid
ornament, and was as proud of it as could be. Jemmy, being neat-handed
at such things, did the frame over for her prettily with red morocco,
and got our propertyman to do it all round with a bright golden
border. And then we hung it at her side, with a nice little bit of silk
cord--just as you see it now.

"I held out in making her speak some time after my husband: but at last
I gave in too. I know it was wrong and selfish of me; but I got a fear
that she wouldn't like me as well as she used to do, and would take
more kindly to Jemmy than to me, if I went on. Oh, how happy she was
the first day I wrote down on her slate that I wouldn't worry her about
speaking any more! She jumped up on my knees--being always as nimble as
a squirrel--and kissed me over and over again with all her heart. For
the rest of the day she run about the room, and all over the house,
like a mad thing, and when Jemmy came home at night from performing, she
would get out of bed and romp with him, and ride pickaback on him, and
try and imitate the funny faces she'd seen him make in the ring. I do
believe, sir, that was the first regular happy night we had all had
together since the dreadful time when she met with her accident.

"Long after that, my conscience was uneasy though, at times, about
giving in as I had. At last I got a chance of speaking to another doctor
about little Mary; and he told me that if we had kept her up in her
speaking ever so severely, it would still have been a pain and a
difficulty to her to say her words, to her dying day. He said too, that
he felt sure--though he couldn't explain it to me--that people afflicted
with such stone deafness as hers didn't feel the loss of speech, because
they never had the want to use their speech; and that they took to
making signs, and writing, and such like, quite kindly as a sort of
second nature to them. This comforted me, and settled my mind a good
deal. I hope in God what the gentleman said was true; for if I was in
fault in letting her have her own way and be happy, it's past mending
by this time. For more than two years, ma'am, I've never heard her say
a single word, no more than if she'd been born dumb, and it's my belief
that all the doctors in the world couldn't make her speak now.

"Perhaps, sir, you might wish to know how she first come to show her
tricks on the cards in the