with his wife's attire. It was a
_landscape_, begging the word, after Turner's own heart. "Them's two
dummies from the asylum, I know," she continued. "Let's watch 'em make
signs." And she gazed upon us from the serene heights of green sward
with an amused, patronizing smile.

We dared not laugh. Dummies we had been dubbed, and dummies we must
remain to the end of the scene. Were ever mortals in such a fix? We
talked _them_ over well, however, while suffering tortures from our
pent-up emotions.

"That there one's rayther good-looking," ventured the proprietor of
the velvet and gold.

"Not so mighty, either," said his wife, bridling. "Face is too
chalky-like, and the other one is too fat." This was near being the
death of us both, as the two critics together would have turned
the scale at near five hundred. Consternation seized us just then,
however, as we saw a fellow-teacher approaching us who would be sure
to address us in spoken language and reveal us as two cheats. Hastily
retreating from the scene, we made our way to an anteroom, where it
was not considered a sin to laugh.

The instruction of deaf mutes in articulate speech has of late years
attracted considerable attention in both Europe and America. In
some of the European schools, in the Clark Institute at Northampton,
Massachusetts, and in a few of our State institutions it is brought
to great perfection. There are also special schools for this system of
teaching in most of our large cities. The majority of pupils in these
schools converse with ease, and understand readily what is said
to them by means of the motion of the lips. The Clark Institute at
Northampton, already referred to, under the conduct of Miss Harriet
Rogers, is the largest and most widely known of the schools for this
special method of instruction in this country. This is not a
State institution, but one endowed by the munificence of a private
gentleman, and consequently subject to none of the restrictions
imposed on the public institutions. Of course, only the most promising
pupils are sent there, and from these a careful selection is made, by
which means the highest possible success is ensured. Some of the
State institutions, however, burdened as they are with a large and
unassorted mass of pupils, have made most encouraging progress in
this direction. Of these, one of the most successful is the Illinois
institution. In its last published report the correspondence between
the principa