620 EXTRAORDINARY CASE OF A BLIND LADY 
asked her, in the manner which has been described, if she could tell 
what colour it was ? and after applying her fingers attentively to the 
figures of the embroidery, she replied, that it was red, and blue, and 
green ; which was true. The same lady having a pink-coloured ribbon 
on her head, and being w'iiling still further to satisfy her curiosity 
and her doubts, asked her what colour that was ? Her cousin, after 
feeling some time, answered that it was pink colour ; this answer was 
yet more astonishing, because it shewed not only a power of distin- 
guishing different colours, but different kinds of the same colour ; the 
ribbon was not only discovered to be red, but the red was discovered 
to be of the pale kind called a pink. This unhappy lady, conscious 
of her own uncommon infirmities, was extremely uiiwiliing to be seen 
by strangers, and generally retired to her chamber, where none but 
those of the family were likely to come. 
“ The same relation, who had by the experiment of the apron and 
ribbon discovered the exquisite sensibility of her touch, w as soon after 
convinced by an accident, that her power of smelling was acute and 
refined in the same highly astonishing degree. Being one day visit- 
ing the family, she went up to her cousin’s chamber, and after making 
herself known, she entreated her to go down, and sit w'ith her among 
the rest of the family, assuring her that there was no other person 
present; to this she at length consented, and went down to the par- 
lour door, but the moment the door was opened, she turned back, and 
retired to her own chamber much displeased ; alleging, that there 
were strangers in the room, and that an attempt had been made to 
deceive her. It happened indeed that there were strangers in the room, 
but they had come in while the lady was above stairs, so that she did 
not know they were there. When she had convinced her cousin of this 
particular, she was satisfied ; and being afterwards asked how she 
knew there were strangers in the room, she answered. By the smell. 
But though she could by this sense distinguish in general between 
persons with whom she was well acquainted from strangers, yet she 
could not so easily distinguish one of her acquaintances from another 
without other assistance. She generally distinguished her friends 
by feeling their hands ; and when they came in, they used to present 
their hands to her, as a means of making them known: the make and 
warmth of the hand produced in general the differences that she dis- 
tinguished ; but sometimes she used to span the wrist and measure 
the fingers. A lady, with whom she was very well acquainted, coming 
in one very hot day, after having walked a mile, presented her hand 
as usual; she felt it longer than ordinary, and seemed to doubt whose 
it was ; but after spanning the wrist, and measuring the fingers, she 
said, It is Mrs. M. but she is warmer to-day than ever I felt her 
before.” 
“To amuse herself in the mournful and perpetual solitude-and dark- 
ness to which her disorder had reduced her, she used to w'ork much 
at her needle ; and it is remarkable, that her needle-work was uncom- 
monly neat and exact: among many other species of her work that 
are preserved in the family, is a pincushion, which can scarcely be 
equalled. She also used sometimes to write, and her writing was yet 
more extraordinary than her needle-work ; it was executed with the 
