brush. Miserrimus Dexter
appeared to be perfectly satisfied with these results.

"I thought my little experiment might interest you," he said. "You see
how it is? The dormant intelligence of my curious cousin is like the
dormant sound in a musical instrument. I play upon it--and it answers to
my touch. She likes being played upon. But her great delight is to hear
me tell a story. I puzzle her to the verge of distraction; and the more
I confuse her the better she likes the story. It is the greatest fun;
you really must see it some day." He indulged himself in a last look
at the mirror. "Ha!" he said, complacently; "now I shall do. Vanish,
Ariel!"

She tramped out of the room in her heavy boots, with the mute obedience
of a trained animal. I said "Good-night" as she passed me. She neither
returned the salutation nor looked at me: the words simply produced
no effect on her dull senses. The one voice that could reach her was
silent. She had relapsed once more into the vacant inanimate creature
who had opened the gate to us, until it pleased Miserrimus Dexter to
speak to her again.

"Valeria!" said my mother-in-law. "Our modest host is waiting to see
what you think of him."

While my attention was fixed on his cousin he had wheeled his chair
around so as to face me with the light of the lamp falling full on him.
In mentioning his appearance as a witness at the Trial, I find I have
borrowed (without meaning to do so) from my experience of him at this
later time. I saw plainly now the bright intelligent face and the large
clear blue eyes, the lustrous waving hair of a light chestnut color, the
long delicate white hands, and the magnificent throat and chest which I
have elsewhere described. The deformity which degraded and destroyed the
manly beauty of his head and breast was hidden from view by an Oriental
robe of many colors, thrown over the chair like a coverlet. He was
clothed in a jacket of black velvet, fastened loosely across his chest
with large malachite buttons; and he wore lace ruffles at the ends of
his sleeves, in the fashion of the last century. It may well have been
due to want of perception on my part--but I could see nothing mad in
him, nothing in any way repelling, as he now looked at me. The one
defect that I could discover in his face was at the outer corners of
his eyes, just under the temple. Here when he laughed, and in a lesser
degree when he smiled, the skin contracted into quaint little wrinkles