before. There's some part of myself that seems left behind like, between
Mary's grave and Mary's child. Must I cross the seas again to find it?
Give us hold of your hand, Zack--and take the leavings of me back, along
with you."

So the noble nature of the man unconsciously asserted itself in his
simple words. So the two returned to the old land together. The first
kiss with which his dead sister's child welcomed him back, cooled the
Tramp's Fever for ever; and the Man of many Wanderings rested at last
among the friends who loved him, to wander no more.

NOTE TO CHAPTER VII. I DO not know that any attempt has yet been made
in English fiction to draw the character of a "Deaf Mute," simply
and exactly after nature--or, in other words, to exhibit the peculiar
effects produced by the loss of the senses of hearing and speaking
on the disposition of the person so afflicted. The famous Fenella, in
Scott's "Peveril of the Peak," only assumes deafness and dumbness;
and the whole family of dumb people on the stage have the remarkable
faculty--so far as my experience goes--of always being able to hear what
is said to them. When the idea first occurred to me of representing the
character of a "Deaf Mute" as literally as possible according to nature,
I found the difficulty of getting at tangible and reliable materials to
work from, much greater than I had anticipated; so much greater, indeed,
that I believe my design must have been abandoned, if a lucky chance
had not thrown in my way Dr. Kitto's delightful little book, "The Lost
Senses." In the first division of that work, which contains the author's
interesting and touching narrative of his own sensations under the total
loss of the sense of hearing, and its consequent effect on the faculties
of speech, will be found my authority for most of those traits in
Madonna's character which are especially and immediately connected with
the deprivation from which she is represented as suffering. The moral
purpose to be answered by the introduction of such a personage as this,
and of the kindred character of the Painter's Wife, lies, I would fain
hope, so plainly on the surface, that it can be hardly necessary for me
to indicate it even to the most careless reader. I know of nothing which
more firmly supports our faith in the better parts of human nature, than
to see--as we all may--with what patience and cheerfulness the heavier
bodily afflictions of humanity are borne, for the most p