the doorway, and Captain Keller said, "There she is. She has
known all day that some one was expected, and she has been wild
ever since her mother went to the station for you." I had
scarcely put my foot on the steps, when she rushed toward me with
such force that she would have thrown me backward if Captain
Keller had not been behind me. She felt my face and dress and my
bag, which she took out of my hand and tried to open. It did not
open easily, and she felt carefully to see if there was a
keyhole. Finding that there was, she turned to me, making the
sign of turning a key and pointing to the bag. Her mother
interfered at this point and showed Helen by signs that she must
not touch the bag. Her face flushed, and when her mother
attempted to take the bag from her, she grew very angry. I
attracted her attention by showing her my watch and letting her
hold it in her hand. Instantly the tempest subsided, and we went
upstairs together. Here I opened the bag, and she went through it
eagerly, probably expecting to find something to eat. Friends had
probably brought her candy in their bags, and she expected to
find some in mine. I made her understand, by pointing to a trunk
in the hall and to myself and nodding my head, that I had a
trunk, and then made the sign that she had used for eating, and
nodded again. She understood in a flash and ran downstairs to
tell her mother, by means of emphatic signs, that there was some
candy in a trunk for her. She returned in a few minutes and
helped me put away my things. It was too comical to see her put
on my bonnet and cock her head first on one side, then on the
other, and look in the mirror, just as if she could see. Somehow
I had expected to see a pale, delicate child--I suppose I got the
idea from Dr. Howe's description of Laura Bridgman when she came
to the Institution. But there's nothing pale or delicate about