i893-] 147 [Blake. 
Stretched outward as if in searcli of an object with which the rest- 
less fingers might come in contact. The movement of the arms 
was peculiar ; the left moved more slowly than the right and was 
carried across the body ; the right swept in an ai-c from before 
backward, tlie fingers of the hand being slightly curved and con- 
stantly in motion, — the suggestion being that of the movement of 
antennae. The moment these questioning fingers came in contact 
with any substance they immediately began a most minute tactile 
investigation. If the object were a wall, the fingers were carried 
up and down it, to the right and to the left, until some break in 
its surface was found. This might be a crack or a moulding ; it 
might be a horizontal projection or a corner of a bookcase ; 
whatever its direction, or its character, elevation or depression of 
the smooth surface, it was at once investigated to its ultimate 
ending. Tlie restless fingers ran over the books in the bookcase, 
along the backs of the chairs and legs of the tables, down upon the 
riooi- and as high upward as the arm could reach. Coming in 
contact with a j)erson the senrch became more intimate and the 
expression of the face more eager and more interested. The 
corners of the mouth, which were depressed, elevated a little, nnd 
while tliere was no evidence of sight in the eyes or of direct move- 
ment of the eyeballs, there was a slight movement of the muscles 
of the side of the face and of the jaw and above the eyebrows. 
When the fingers found something entirely new to their cog- 
nizance this fact was indicated by a momentary arrest of the pro- 
cess of inspection which was repeated two or three times about 
the same object. 
Comparatively speaking, the face was immobile ; the figure, and 
especially the arms and hands, intensely alert. The child was 
absolutely blind, totally deaf, nnd had no other means of communi- 
cation with the outer world in which she lived than that which 
came through her sense of touch and its elaborations, her sense of 
taste and smell. She lived as we might live in interstellar space, 
in a world absolutely dark, absolutely silent, and, so far as the 
perception of all the love and the warmth of that affection which 
has since come into her life, absolutely cold. 
She walked somewhat unsteadily and hesitatingly. She 
doubted approaches which were new to her. She evidently 
questioned everything that came to hei- through the limited chan- 
nel of communication left to her bv the disease which had robbed 
