entered at the other. As soon as he clapped eyes on her, he had set up his
usual impatient outcries; but Maggie, instead of going directly to him,
had stopped to exchange a few words with the head-nurse, unfastening the
front of her dress the while, however, so that Master Archibald's
impatience was carried to the point of intolerance by the glimpse thus
afforded of the good things in store for him. And then, before you had
time to think, he had got up from his chair, and trotted across the floor,
bellowing all the time, and had tugged at Maggie's dress.

"Bellowing all the time, eh?" said the Doctor.

"And walking all the same like he was ten year old, sir: and it did give us
all a turn; and if you please, sir, what do you say to _that_?"

"What do I say to that?--why, that it's just what I should have
expected--that's what I say!" replied Dr. Rollinson, who had apparently
begun to divine some clew to the grand mystery. But he vouchsafed no
explanations as yet.

Archibald did not repeat the walking miracle, although, within the space of
a few weeks only, he passed through the regular gradations of crawling,
tottering, and toddling, to normal pedestrianism of the most active kind.
His progress in other accomplishments was almost parallel with this. From
inarticulate gabble he trained his tongue to definite speech; his
vocabulary expanded with astonishing rapidity, and, contrary to his
previous habit, he made incessant use of it. He was now as remarkable for
loquacity as formerly for the opposite characteristic; and his keenness of
observation and retentive memory were a theme of general admiration. In a
word, he used his five senses to ten times better effect than had ever
been expected of him in the old days; and no one who had not seen him for